February 28, 2004

The Professor Called Again!

This time he wanted to know if I have copies of my black and white photographs of the Silver man Performances from the 1950’s here at THE BIG NEEDLE.

“Actually no,” I said. “I don’t have copies of any of my old black and white photographs from the 1950’s through 1980. What you see in Sanctuary is what you get.”



“You didn’t save your negatives. You never made duplicates or editions of any of your prints, Isaac?”

“I did save negatives, and they should all be in shoe boxes in one of the file cabinets. As far as multiple prints and editions, what was the need? I started the silver man performances out of a personal necessity. Who knew anyone would be interested in a crazy Pennsylvania Dutch man who walked around dressed in silver foil. By the time I realized that I had something other than outsider art, It was already 1980, and I thought, time sure can get away from you when you’re having fun. I have made duplicates and multiple editions of everything I’ve done since 1980, but not before.”

“That’s too bad. Some of the burned photographs are irreparable.”

“I just don’t understand how they could have been burned. Who would do such a thing. It would have to be someone in my own family.”

“I don’t know, Isaac. It could have been a fluke, like a fire started by sun light magnified through one of the sky lights and reflected off of one of your old glass bottles.”

“Some fluke. The entire house could have burned down.”

“Be that as it may, I have no way of replacing the damaged photographs. Is that correct?

“Did you go through the negatives?”

“Yes. I’ve dug through everything up there. Some of your negatives must be missing.”

“Isn’t it interesting that the negatives for the damaged and / or burned photographs are missing.”

“I’ve puzzled together some photographs from the torn pieces. Unfortunately others were burned too badly.”

“I’ll bet if you looked at all the photographs in order to see which family member is never in the photographs we’d know who burned the missing ones.”

“I’m just interested in getting everything cataloged so that others can easily find specific items in the collection.”

“So, once you’re finished, I could conduct my own little study to see if the culprit was burning only the pictures she, I mean, he or she was in.”

“Yes.”


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February 26, 2004

President Proposes A Constitutional Amendment

The new amendment will be the XXVIIIth Amendment, and it will prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying. It would define marriage as something only heterosexuals can have thus making gays and lesbians a group of 2nd class citizens. It will define the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of American families as people who do not deserve the right to build new, loving families and it will be the first time in our history that the Constitution of the United States of America will have been used as a tool of prejudice to purposefully limit the rights of an entire class of citizens.

I personally am saddened at the prospect. I am saddened that the belief in God and in his son Jesus Christ is being used to support the legal creation of a class of citizens that is designated as less worthy than all others. I am saddened that the office of President of the United States is being used as a tool to legalize prejudice against lesbian and gay people.

Shame on you Mr. Bush!

God created me gay. He did not create a person for you to hate and classify as a second class citizen, Mr. President. He created me because he loves what and who I am. In the spirit of such an all encompassing love...

God bless you and all those others who would have me classified as not worthy of the same basic human rights as my heterosexual brothers and sisters.


God Visits Isaac*


* Michael Olteanu, Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi, “a private, non profit organization...” at “http://www.christusrex.org/www1/stanzas/L13-Loggia.html,” last revised June 15, 1997 (viewed Thursday, February 26, 2004 at 6:43 A.M. EST)


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February 24, 2004

And What Pray tell is Ralph Nader Thinking About?

HIMSELF!



Oh well, I could go on and on, spouting venom, but what good would it do. It’s just a shame that he’s ruinied all the past work he accomplished for the critters in the ecosphere, as well as the American working people and consumers. When I was much younger, Mr. Nader was one of my heroes. Too bad!

' "It's a question between both parties flunking,'' Nader said on NBC's ''Meet the Press,'' where he chose to make his announcement. He asserted that ''it's time to change the equation and bring millions of American people into the political arena." '*

Well, this message is from one of the American people, Ralph. You’re on an ego trip, and we don’t want you. Get out of the sandbox and go home!

The Bush White House folk must be dancing in the west wing corridors. I picture a conga line. “Four more years, Uh! Four more years, Uh!”

*2

I Thought this image appropriate though from FreeRepublic.com, “A Conservative News Forum.” The person who posted, Helms, on September 9, 2003 states “My take on this is that they fear Nader’s return in O4.”

Darn right, Mr. or Ms. Helms. This could get your Mr. Bush reelected. A prospect to horrible to think of for an old liberal Democrat like myself.

Education Secretary Rod Paige Calls the National Education Association a “terrorist organization” at a private meeting with the governors in the White House yesterday morning!

My grandson, Adam, is a teacher and a member of the NEA. My grandson loves teaching. He is not a terrorist as none of the members of the NEA are terrorists. Adam will go to work with his young charges today knowing that the highest office in education in the USA has labeled him a terrorist. Mr. Paige, your remark was rude and inappropriate!


* “Sam Hananel, “Ralph Nader Announces Run for Presidency,” AOL News, http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/elections/article.adp?id=20040220113109990001,
AP-NY-02-22-04 1636EST (Viewed Sunday, February 22, 2004, 5:23 P.M. EST).

*2 FreeRepublic.com, A Conservative News Forum.” (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/990657/posts), posted by Helms,0927/03 at 11:44 A.M. PDT (viewed Sunday, February 22, 2004, 6:11 P.M. EST).


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February 22, 2004

Anticipating Spring

The weather has been so-o-o-o-o-o beautiful the past 3 days. I know it can’t last. In fact, it’s colder today, but I WANT SPRING! January and the first week of February were horrible! It wasn’t the snow so much. We’ve had more of that. It was the cold, 19 days in the single digits in January. And, it rained and sleeted on the snow we did have until it became a solid 6” sheet of ice. It’s still not completely melted. Everyone here at THE MANOR is saying it’s not over until we have the onion snow, and that doesn’t come until April. I hope they’re all talking through their Pennsylvania Dutch hats, and that the actual weather has nothing to do with what groundhogs or people prescribe.

California’s Law that Defines Marriage as Between a Man and a Woman is Against the State Constitution!

So says the city of San Francisco. How appropriate that the city named after Saint Francis of Assisi has embraced the issue that is the basis for making lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered persons the equals of their heterosexual brothers and sisters. One must remember Saint Francis’ embrace of the leper, symbolically making the leper his equal.*

Of course MR. MUSCLE, has said that San Francisco must stop marrying gay men and lesbian women. What else would one expect? Ah well, I do think that history will see Mr. Schwarzenegger as a cultural anachronism, that is a 70's phenomenon transported but not necessarily transformed to fit into the 21st century (Dismissed!).

* Memorial Prayer Cards, ©1998 Phelan Design Studio, http://www.memorialprayercards.com/Pages/saintscardsnb.html (Viewed Saturday, February 21, 2004, 11:05 A.M. EST)

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February 20, 2004

Bush Contributions for Reelection Campaign Exceed 150 Million Dollars!



Did I read correctly? The Bush reelection people have spend 100 million dollars for ads and commercials bad mouthing Kerry. They must be worried. I wonder how nasty the ads will get?
Ruth and Samuel Take Me Out to Dinner



Last night we went to the Plain & Fancy Farm Restaurant! I couldn’t believe it. It’s a tourist joint. All the New York City tourists go there to get “real Amish (they pronounce it with a long A) cooking.

“I’m going off my diet and I want salad with hot bacon dressing, 3 bean salad, chow chow, corn pudding, heaps of mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie, red beet eggs, and shoofly pie for desert.”

“She’s been talking about this for days,” said Samuel.

“Couldn’t we go to the Red Lobster,” I asked.

“Daddy, that place is so crowded, and it’s just a mass production, slop the hogs restaurant.”

“They’ve got better slop than Sweet and Sour does,” I said.

“Well, I’m just not interested in sea food tonight.”

Samuel began to sing softly, “ Whatever Ruthie wants, Ruthie gets...”

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s just head out of THE BIG NEEDLE.

True to her word, Ruth ate everything Sweet and Sour had to offer. She’d been dieting for about a month and had lost 10 pounds, but probably gained it all back last night. During the course of the meal I was told that The Professor is getting to the bottom of the debris in Sanctuary, and that he is almost finished cataloging all my things.

“Good,” I said. “Once he’s finished perhaps he’ll return to Pittsburgh and let us alone.”

“I think he wants to talk to you about one of the journals, Isaac,” said Samuel. “There are pages missing, or damaged, or maybe both.”

“I just don’t understand what happened. Who would damage, or take my things? It’s not like my studio was open to the public. And, what’s The Professor need to catalogue my work for?”

“Daddy, you know the attic leaks, and there was a fire too. And, The Professor isn’t just cataloguing your work. He’s filing and saving every scrap of paper that has anything to do with your entire life.”

“I repaired the leaks remember, and how does a fire start in he attic and put itself out without damaging the rest of that old house?”

“We’re incredibly fortunate, Isaac. All your work would have been lost, and all of our antiques destroyed, not to mention the risk to our own persons.

“Daddy, why professor has saved Sanctuary and everything in it.”

“No, I think he’s appropriated Sanctuary along with everything in it, and I wish he’d go away.”

* “The Pennsylvania Dutch Country Welcome Center,” PaDutch.com, http://www.padutch.com/hexsigns.shtml (Viewed Friday, February 20, 2004 at 5:38 A.M. EST)

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I’m driving again!

I’m so-o-o-o-o happy!

I’m walking with a cane. The ankle still gets stiff as (bleep), and when I get up in the morning It’s hard to put my weight on it. But, after I hobble around awhile, it feels better.

Bush’s Popularity Dropping

It’s about time. According to poles, 54% of us do not trust the man.

Kerry Wins Wisconsin / Edwards 2nd

John Edwards was a close second and 50% of those poled on AOL say that Edwards has a chance of being nominated the Democrat Party candidate for president. Being a liberal, I prefer Kerry. He’s almost as liberal as Dean, and I’ve felt all along that Kerry is more “presidential” than Dean. Perhaps good old Democratic Liberalism is not as dead as many a pundit would have us believe.
However, I wonder whether or not we need the South to beat George W. Bush? This race isn’t over yet, and it keeps getting more interesting.

*

However, I worry that the issue of “Gay Marriage” will keep any Democrat from being elected.

*1

I know that gay marriage stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered equality in our culture. It will allow lesbian women, gay men, a bisexual male or female to marry a person of the same sex, to have the same financial privileges as heterosexual persons including the all important hospital visitation rights, and the ability to easily make families. However, it will be the issue that the conservative portion of the Republican party will seize upon in the attempt to prevent the election of a Democrat to the office of President of the United States. Instead, “Gay Marriage” may be the issue that gives George W. Bush a second, and this time, voter mandated term in office.

Bush without a Mandate



Mr. Bush did not have a mandate from the voters in the last election, and the damage done to the basic rights of all Americans is extensive. Due to the horrific tragedy of 9/11/01 Congress gave Mr. Bush the right to do anything he wished in “The War Against Terrorism,” and the Patriot Act was shoved down our throats without a thought to what it might do to our basic rights. Thus, the Bush presidency has destroyed our image as a moral and humanitarian power in the world because of the 2nd Gulf War, and we have not moved one iota closer to the prevention of acts of terror around the world. Instead - let us not sugar coat our objectives in fighting this war - we have killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children in order to gain control over the worlds largest oil reserves.

What is Freedom?

Additionally, I understand what it means to have six hundred grown men and teenagers held in prison without the right to trial for all eternity in this “Free” country. I know because Abraham Lincoln speaks to me. In my imagination I hear him say, and I paraphrase - “as long as one man is not free, so all men are not free.”

What would a second, and this time mandated, “Bush II” term in office do to America? I shudder to think of it!



*Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, http://edwards.senate.gov/ (viewed Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 6:33 A.M. EST)

*1 CNNenEspanol.com/Americas, “Tres ex presidentes apoyan legalizar la unión de homosexuales en Colombia,” http://www.cnnenespanol.com/2003/americas/08/20/colombia_homosexuales.ap/ (viewed Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 6:42 A.M. EST)

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February 16, 2004

The Art Object as Toggle: Conclusions

*

I’m back to my art theory again. However, this is the last time for a while, dear journal. I promise.

I've been thinking about the affect my understanding of the “Toggle” must have on my perception of the Art World, and the world in general?

I should offer two caveats. First, the artist making art sets lose in the world an object over which he / she has little or no control. Second, The art object must become institutionalized in order to become the “Toggle” I have described. I am describing part of this process of institutionalization when I discuss the understandings placed on the art object by people in the art world. A detailed description of the institutionalization of the art object might be the proper subject for another entry. Arthur Danto describes his ideas about the Art World in detail in “The Art World.” Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964): 571-84.

While the artist has no control over his / her creation, neither does anyone else. The layers of meaning gathered by the object are subject to reinterpretation and obliteration by an evolving culture. One generation’s understanding of the art object may be derided by the next. Art historians, museum curators, critics, and theorists alike may compose reflections based on the art work. However, the occulus that is the art object may refract constructed images, distort, and bend them so that one image created by one author becomes confused with that of another until that which is reflected to succeeding generations of viewers has little or nothing to do with the original intentions, of the author(s).

The culture in which each viewer lives determines how he or she perceives the art object. However, the culture, like the art object itself can not be controlled. It is as though the art object and an evolving culture are living things that compose a dialogue with one another, and that dialogue changes over time constructing new meanings for the evolving culture about the art object.

Based on this discussion I have decided that totalitarian leaders and nations are wise to close the museums and prohibit all art making except that approved and made by the state itself. Art objects are powerful things over which we as individuals have little or no control. The new meanings composed by the dialogue between the evolving culture in which we live and the art object itself can change the course of culture. That is one of the reasons artists create art. It is because the art object is not simply a reflection of the culture in which the artist lives. Instead, at least some artists intuitively know that when they create a work of art, they release a free agent into the culture in the hopes that it may effect change within the culture over time.

*NOC (Newtwork Operations Center), http://www.a1-hosting.com/noc.htm, ©1996-2001, al.hosting.com (viewed Monday, February 16, 2004 at 6:24 A.M. EST)


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February 14, 2004

The Importance of the Art Object: An Example

Dear Journal,

I keep returning to the three positions from which to view the art object. If you remember, in my January 12th and 14th, and February 8th and 10th entries I had discussed the three positions from which to perceive the art object. I had started that discussion arguing for the importance of the originating act, but soon realized that the art object itself, while inanimate, is the thing through which all three positions have intercourse. In that respect, it is like a toggle or switch that allows electric current to flow back and forth. The toggle might even be closed and opened.
*
For instance, I am presently reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, as are, I suppose, a great many people. It is an intense page turner of a mystery novel. I have only read a hundred pages or so, but so far, DaVinci’s “Vitruvian Man,” figures prominently in the text. The author analyzes DaVinci’s intent as one of the intricately interwoven currents in the complex plot of the book, which, on the surface is nothing more than the mysterious murder of a prominent art curator. As I have read the text, I have gleaned a plethora of related bits of information about the art work. They include the following. First, that DaVinci based the name on Vitruvius, the ancient Roman architect, who’s discourse, De Architectura discusses the divine proportion. Second, the divine proportion, also known as PHI (pronounced “fee”) is 1.618 to 1. Third, DaVinci’s art work “The Vitruvian Man,” visually the perfect man, stands inside a circle with his arms outstretched, and his legs spread far apart as though drawn and quartered to be dissected. He describes a pentacle. Fourth, a pentacle was not a symbol of evil in the ancient pagan world, but rather it was a symbol for the powerful creative feminine forces in the universe. Fifth, a pentacle is constructed of five lines that intersect in such a way as to make a five pointed star which is composed of intersecting lines that describe repeatedly the value of PHI. Sixth, the value of PHI occurs throughout nature with startling fecundity including the proportions of the human figure. Thus man and his architecture, are intricately intertwined with nature. And, this pagan construction flows through all of DaVinci’s commissioned works like invisible electrical currents flowing beneath the surface iconographic images about the Christian Catholic faith . How interesting that Dan Brown has created a Postmodern work of literature that opens the art works created by DaVinci in the Sixteenth Century proto Italian cultures to millions of viewers in the Twenty-first century North American culture.
*1
Thus, Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Codeis a new toggle that allows an old one to be reopened. And, yes, it is understood that my comprehension and use of this old/new current will be different from that of the Sixteenth Century homosexual Catholic artist who created the older art work (Vitruvian Man). However, without these two art objects - one an image and one composed of text that creates a fiction - my perception and use of the former as a toggle through which to view the current of DaVinci’s thought and time would be limited to my own past perceptions about DaVinci. Dan Brown’s book opens me to a new exploration of the currents that flow through DaVinci’s work.

(We will talk of this more in the future, dear Journal, because the verbiage, “opens me,” implies that I too am a toggle.)

*Image, http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0739313126.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg, Amazon Books: Books Search Result: The DaVinci Code, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3DThe%2520DaVinci%2520Code/103-2929520-8917421(viewed Saturday, February 14, 10:04 A.M. EST 2004)

*1 http://www.aiwaz.net/Leonardo/vitruvianman/vitruvianthmb.jpg, aiwaz.net_institute, Leonardo DaVinci, http://www.aiwaz.net/Leonardo/vitruvianman/index.html, updated Fri Sep 12 17:29:55 2003 (viewed Saturday, February 14 10:30 A.M. EST 2004)


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February 12, 2004

Go Kerry Go!

*

Can he beat Bush?

Varnastrama Visit

Last night I lay in bed worrying about the Bush Administration’s seeming ability to achieve anything it would like, including turning the USA into a Fascist state. I became increasingly agitated. Finally, frustrated, I closed my eyes and thought of my room in Varnastrama, the villa, the fields, my family, and Peter. I thought about the walk with Peter last week. We had walked through the chest high corn field behind the villa, and I pretended to breath in the green, corn stalk and dirt smells. I opened my eyes to see Peter staring at me, puzzled. “There,” he said. “You just did it again. You get that pinched and frustrated look in your face, and you seem to drift away and I guess you imagine yourself in that horrible Earth-land.”

“Yes,” I said. Horrible indeed. You don’t really want to know about it Peter.” And I continued, “Let’s walk toward the North border of the farm. I’d like to check on the apple orchard you’re starting.”

“There’s not much to see yet. The new trees won’t set fruit for two more years.”

“Still, I like to go there. It reminds me of another orchard, a very productive one, as yours will be one day.” We continued to walk through the hot July sunshine. Peter put his left hand on my right shoulder and my pulse increased, my heart literally skipping a beat.

“I love the summer,” Peter said. “And, I love you. I love the heat of the summer, and I love the heat I feel when I touch you. I still feel like a teenager whose fallen in love for the very first time, Isaac.”

“Sounds like a song title to me.”

“Isaac! You’re talking about that weird Earth-land, the one you claim to share with this one, where teenagers dance almost naked on an electric view box. You describe a civillization in which people are segregated into groups according to there sexuality and even their sex and then punished for being in the wrong group. In your USA, it’s leader, the Bush is invading foreign countries and behaving like “the New Rome.” And, it’s all because he wants to control oil. I don’t understand. Why not just use alternative energy sources; sun, water, wind? You’re imagination is sick. It’s a beautiful day, here, on this earth, Varnastrama. Don’t spoil it. Walk with me. Hold my hand. Don’t say anything. Just be with me.”

*Photograph taken from “Welcome to Senator John Kerry’s Online Office,” at “http://www.senate.gov/~kerry/bandwidth/home.html,” (February 12, 2004: 6:32 A.M. EST)


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February 10, 2004

The Art Object As Toggle: Part II

In my last entry I had described how the art object conducts the various currents of artist, viewer and culture. I metaphorically described the art object as being like a comet whose tail has gathers the thoughts and ideas of all those who have looked at it. I am once again including the chart that I had included Sunday because it shows how the currents generated by artist, viewers, and culture are conducted by the art object. I have used the passive form of the verb to describe this process, though I wonder if over time the art object doesn’t acquire the ability to control the flow of energy to an extent. Not that the art object has agency, but that the acquisition of so many layers of human thought gives to it a weight that in itself becomes a force like gravity and performs as agency. However, that question might be best explored in another entry.

First, the artist’s intent is invested in the art work. Once the art work is placed in the art world, various viewer’s understandings based in the artist’s culture are constructed about it. However, the art object is able to travel forward in time, leaving artist and viewers behind. As the art object makes its journey through time, the culture and the viewers that are a part of it change. New viewers look at the art object and form new opinions about it. These are acquired and altered by the viewer’s culture and reflected back to the object. It is as though the art work itself acquires a memory, except that the memory is altered by new layers of viewer experience. And, so it continues. Catastrophic events might break this reflective process of acquisition, and thus alter the currents of perception drastically. Such an event or series of events might also despoil the object of the originator’s intent for a period of time, or permanently. However, the art work still retains its ability to perform as a toggle or switch governing the currents of perception between viewer’s and culture. This process will end only with the destruction of the art object itself.

*1

To recapitulate, It is as though this art object / toggle becomes a shuttered eye that opens and closes to expose the surface of the artist’s creation like film in a camera to the varied spectra of light created by a myriad stars placed in the piceous black of the Earth’s night time sky. Thus, the art object acquires a memory and animus of its own, though these change, even as my own faulty memory and intent change over time so that new configurations and meanings are acquired and lost as I travel forward through time and space.

But, Why Is This Important

Stay tuned for an entry that will detail my conclusions and discuss the importance of my idea that the art object is a toggle through which energy generated by artist, viewer, and culture is conducted.

*Danto, Arthur. “The Art World.” Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964):
571-84

*1 Image acquired from John Bittinger Klomp


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Mark Harden’s Artchive. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the best place to find excellent images of artist’s works on the WWW.

Gay Artist’s Galleries

Oku’s Surotic Gallery, an erotic art site.

Arts and Letters Daily, ideas, criticism, and debate, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

ArtsJournal.com, the Daily Digest of Arts, Culture, & Ideas.

the Advocate, the GLTB news magazine.

February 08, 2004

Back to the Art Object as "Toggle"

Do you remember those entries about the three positions for viewing art, Dear Journal? There were two entries; the first on January 12, 2004, and the second on January 14, 2004. I am finally wandering back to them.

I had decided that the art object itself is more important than the three positions; artist, viewer, or the culture(s) in which they exist. Lest we should forget, the art work is the object on which all three focus energy and intent. I have no doubt that the creator of the art object has his or her animus, and that the present or future viewer sees the object from his or her own perspective based in culture. Nevertheless, the art work is the conduit through which all that intention, vision, and understanding flows. Back in January I described the art object metaphorically as a toggle or switch through which these various currents are shunted back and forth.

Because it is the channel through which these forces are conducted, the art work becomes a powerful dynamis in its own right. However, it is not stationary. It changes over time. No viewer or culture has control over it. The original intent of the artist and the understanding given to it by the culture the artist lived in are carried with the object through time. This intent and understanding are altered by the currents of perception each generation of viewers gives to it, though the original intent may or may not remain clearly present. Academicians, critics, and other artists, Arthur Danto’s “Art World,” give it new esoteric meaning as they spin theory about the object.* New theory may be constructed of bits and pieces of reflected flashes of older theory acquired by the art object. The rest of us ordinary viewers in the "Art World" read the theory, look at the art object and our various understandings modify and / or are integrated with the esoteric view to generate the more exoteric cultural understanding at any given time or place.The art work contains these things and in its various incarnations is like a comet gathering its tail from the flotsam and effluvium of the time and space through which it moves.

The chart below shows how the currents of perception are channeled through the art object. I will continue tomorrow or on Tuesday with my discussion of how the chart works. I will also draw conclusions about the art object based on the idea that it is the toggle through which the various understandings are channeled.

*1


*Danto, Arthur. “The Art World.” Journal of Philosophy 61 (1964):
571-84

*1 Image acquired from John Bittinger Klomp


E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

Visit my homepage
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Take a look at:

Betty Bower’s Miracle Cards for wonderful political commentary you can send to your friends. She plays the part to the fullest!=

Holty’s blog for great political comentary and much more from an Australian point of view.

Mark Harden’s Artchive. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the best place to find excellent images of artist’s works on the WWW.

Gay Artist’s Galleries

Oku’s Surotic Gallery, an erotic art site.

Arts and Letters Daily, ideas, criticism, and debate, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

ArtsJournal.com, the Daily Digest of Arts, Culture, & Ideas.

the Advocate, the GLTB news magazine.

February 06, 2004

More Physical Therapy

Those folks at “Health South” are doing wonders. It’s getting easier to walk, and it doesn’t hurt so badly when I move my foot and ankle. Soon, I expect to give up the cane. I am indeed fortunate. Last year, another one of the inmates here at THE BIG NEEDLE broke a hip. Today he can’t walk without a walker!

Ruth took me to the physical therapist yesterday. She’s been too kind, and I do mean too kind. I wonder what’s up.

A Pet Peeve

Which reminds me. Yesterday, my friend Jim’s son, Tom, was here to visit with his oldest son, Peter. Yes, dear journal, another Peter! There are just too many Peters in this world to keep track of. (“Isaac! There are never too many of those.”) Anyway, as I was saying, when this young man was introduced to me, he said, “sup?” That’s it!

“sup?”

What the “BLEEP” does “sup” mean. Of course, I know, but SUP! “How are you,” would have been nice, or, “It’s nice to meet you.” But,

SUP!



It sounds lazy, and insolent. It is insolent, and it’s indicative of bad parenting. Yes, Peter the 239th might say “SUP” to his friends upon running into one of them at the mall, or club. But, to a person three generations his senior, NEVER!!!

He’s a freshman in college. I wonder, does he say, “SUP” to his professors when he encounters them in the halls of “Millennial Generation University?” And, am I alone in loathing this awful abbreviation of the term, “What’s up?” Which, lest we should forget, is slang in the first place. It could just as easily stand in for “dinner,” as in “I made beans and franks for SUP last night.”



As you might have gathered from this diatribe, my friend Jim is quite a few years younger than I. In fact he’s 74. His grandchild hasn’t begun to make a family yet, and who knows what hideous language his children will use. Will it be recognizable as English?

Oh, well. I am now finished with this temper tantrum and soap box speech # 1010.


*The image was located at “http://www.lfhk.cuni.cz/kohler/sup.htm,” located at “http://www.acces.cz/sup/,” However when I tried to go there in order to document my source, I obtained the following. “The page cannot be found.”
(1/18/04: 10:44 A.M.)



E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

Visit my homepage
AOL Hometown


Take a look at:

Betty Bower’s Miracle Cards for wonderful political commentary you can send to your friends. She plays the part to the fullest!=

Holty’s blog for great political comentary and much more from an Australian point of view.

Mark Harden’s Artchive. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the best place to find excellent images of artist’s works on the WWW.

Gay Artist’s Galleries

Oku’s Surotic Gallery, an erotic art site.

Arts and Letters Daily, ideas, criticism, and debate, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

ArtsJournal.com, the Daily Digest of Arts, Culture, & Ideas.

the Advocate, the GLTB news magazine.

February 04, 2004

My Walking Is Improving!

I’m still using the walker, and I have physical therapy 3 times per week, but I can see a difference, and I can bend my foot in more ways without it feeling as though my ankle is shredding itself to pieces. I’m encouraged. I will be driving my cucaracha soon. And, when that happens, I will go South to investigate Florida living in a gay and lesbian retirement community.


The Bush Campaign will be based on his ability to WHAT?



Protect Us!



It’s the cornerstone of his reelection campaign. What’s worse, 57% of the American population believes he can do that better than any Democrat candidate. I would say that America deserves what it gets, except that I’ll be stuck with the Oil Oligarchy for another 4 years as well.

He hasn’t protected us. Instead he has concentrated on a program of foreign war. Whose next? Iran?

The root of the problem isn’t terrorism or Arab oil. It isn’t Al Qaeda specifically. Instead, it’s American oil dependency. If we weren’t dependent on oil, the problem wouldn’t exist. Of course, the Bush Gang wants us to be dependent on oil. They are all part of the Oil Oligarchy!

Wake up! It’s a no brainer.

Time for a paradigm shift A new Manhattan Project. The goal - Complete energy self sufficiency in five years. We could do it with the money Bush will waste pursuing another desert boondoggle, another oil war. The Technology is here now for free clean energy forever - All it takes is leadership...*


What about the money Mr. Bush will spend on the up coming presidential campaign - $320,000,000. If he would guarantee to spend that money for national energy self sufficiency instead of his campaign, I would vote for him. Yes, I would! But, there’s no danger of that happening.

Why isn’t the Democrat Party seizing on this issue? Why isn’t it an issue?

It would be laughable if it weren’t so Frightening!



And that is Soap Box Speech #1404 of an infinite # against this Bush presidency.



* Voxfux, “Bush Can’t Protect Us From His Oil Buddies - Much Less Terrorism,” totse.com, (Tuesday, January 27, 2004: 8:48 A. M. EST).

*2 Alternative Energy Sources, Fighting Against Nuclear Power, http://www.aber.ac.uk/~ajs6/menu.html, The University of Wales, Aberyswyth (Tuesday, January 27, 2004: 9:06 A.M. EST)


E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

Visit my homepage
AOL Hometown


Take a look at:

Betty Bower’s Miracle Cards for wonderful political commentary you can send to your friends. She plays the part to the fullest!=

Holty’s blog for great political comentary and much more from an Australian point of view.

Mark Harden’s Artchive. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the best place to find excellent images of artist’s works on the WWW.

Gay Artist’s Galleries

Oku’s Surotic Gallery, an erotic art site.

Arts and Letters Daily, ideas, criticism, and debate, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

ArtsJournal.com, the Daily Digest of Arts, Culture, & Ideas.

the Advocate, the GLTB news magazine.

February 02, 2004

WMD Found North of Baghdad!

Not so!



*

Nevertheless, I have the irrational fear that WMD will turn up in the weeks before the presidential election next fall and Mr. Bush will be elected to his second term in office by a landslide. It would be so convenient, and the Bushes have those CIA connections. Not that such a thing could or would be done - I am being totally specious, aren’t I?

However, we Democrats would be safe to leave WMD alone. Instead, there are the related issues; aggression against a foreign nation, the concomitant damage to foreign relations, and the plethora of concerns about homeland security. There are seemingly unrelated issues surrounding the national economy; unemployment, the falling value of the dollar against foreign currencies, and the loss of jobs to third world nations to consider. Additionally there are other domestic issues; the federal tax system, education, and the hyperbolic increase of medical expenses to name but a few concerns on which democrats offer substantially different solutions from those the Bush administration has initiated and proposed and/or hasn’t bothered to deal with.

So, how do Democrats view these various concerns as compared to the Bush Administration?

There are two fundamental difference between the Democratic party’s candidates views of the world and the Bush Administrations actions in the world. First, on domestic issues all 7 of the current Democrat candidates focus on relief and help for the middle and lower classes. Instead, the Bush administration favors help for large corporate entities and the upper classes. Lest we should forget, the Bush family’s ties are to old East Coast aristocracy and corporate and international finance. However in finance, the Democrat candidates favor fiscal responsibility, while the Bush administration favors spending. This last is a complete reversal of past Republican Party concerns versus Democratic Party concerns. Notice that I have separated the Bush Administration from the Republican Party in my discourse. I have done that because the Bush financial, political, and social concerns are the opposite of traditional Republican Party concerns for personal freedoms and free enterprise. Instead Mr. Bush places his faith in black gold and the global corporate entities that mine it.

I am constantly amazed at the number of middle class Americans, regardless of their geographic, ethnic, political party origins, religion, and / or sexual orientation who vote for and support Mr. Bush and his administration’s initiatives despite the obvious Bush lack of interest and concern for all of us. Specifically, as an aging, gay man, I am amazed at my few gay friends here in Lancaster who manage to rationalize Mr. Bush’s desire for an amendment to the constitution that would forbid gay marriage.

Not only has Bush expressed support for a gay marriage ban, on January 14 he called for a $1.5 billion plan to promote heterosexual marriage*2


What other absurdities can we spend money on? Perhaps this speaks well to Karl Rove’s ability to disguise the administration’s freedom limiting initiatives within the “down home” spin of the Bush rhetoric. The overwhelming majority of my friends and neighbors here at THE BIG NEEDLE sing the “Plant a Bush on Every Corner” song. I have but 3 friends who will sing “The Bushwhacker Rock” with me. My own daughter, Ruth thinks Mr. Bush is the greatest thing since funnel cakes.

So, what are funnel cakes?

Funnel cakes - Donut batter is dripped in a swirling pattern from a funnel into boiling fat and scooped out in thin strands and lumpy brown bumps onto napkins to drain, dusted with powdered sugar, and consumed voraciously at Pennsylvania Dutch country fairs and other functions.

*1 Betty Bower’s Best Christian: Miracle Cards, “http://www.bettybowers.com/card.html,” (February 2, 2004: 6:32 A.M. EST)

*2 Editorial Staff, “Not Her Best Man,” The Nation, The Advocate February 17, 2004: 14

E-mail me! My e-mail address is ZacSfuts@aol.com.

Visit my homepage
AOL Hometown


Take a look at:

Betty Bower’s Miracle Cards for wonderful political commentary you can send to your friends. She plays the part to the fullest!=

Holty’s blog for great political comentary and much more from an Australian point of view.

Mark Harden’s Artchive. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the best place to find excellent images of artist’s works on the WWW.

Gay Artist’s Galleries

Oku’s Surotic Gallery, an erotic art site.

Arts and Letters Daily, ideas, criticism, and debate, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education.

ArtsJournal.com, the Daily Digest of Arts, Culture, & Ideas.

the Advocate, the GLTB news magazine.