It’s always still the Schoolyard

Trying to prove to the bully you are not what his taunts describe, on the presumption that he will finally admit, “You know, you’re right. I’m sorry. You’re really not a _____.”
Cornered by logic, the garbage person – receiving constant affirmation from otherwise ‘neutral’ observers and aficionados alike – finally relents? He wouldn’t know how, he would lose all credibility because the bullying is his only reliable trait. The challenge to not enjoy his taunts on the playground is especially difficult for people like us. We’re as depraved and morally listless as he, he just has no qualms or shame in providing us the rage we need to sustain him. Circle, and vicious as it gets.

Because we have some better idea of ourselves – standards, values, whatever words we use to signal we know and are better. We grow taller but we don’t grow up. Hatred and contempt are strong collective experiences, especially when the bully provides the cover. It’s as though he is ‘taking the bullet’ [which he would never], getting the flack, wearing his vileness like a badge instead of us. He’s the one, and we’d never do that, be like him, though it is the tacit support that bleeds us like a mortal wound.

And what of the focus of the harassment and intimidation that is so alluring, how to fight back?

The question is, are you ready to fight back? Addressing his smears head-on creates the potential for greater vulnerability; you’ve provided credence, confirmed the weakness to which the bully re-commits himself and his acolytes to torment and its enjoyment. Standing up and pushing back is a dirty, ugly business and you will get dirtied and come out at least a little uglier but the bully knows no other language. There is dignity in ignoring the taunts, but this also requires massive courage and stamina. Something is still going to be in your way. Was it always there? Mmm. I think that’s enough for today’s session.

Cy Twombly, R.I.P.

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‘In his own particular way, Twombly tells us that the essence of writing is neither form nor usage but simply gesture – the gesture that produces it by allowing it to happen: a garble, almost a smudge, a negligence. We can reason this out through a comparison. What would be the essence of a pair of trousers (if it has one)? Certainly not that carefully prepared and rectilinear object found on the racks of department stores; rather the ball of cloth dropped on the floor by the negligent hand of a young boy when he undresses tired, lazy and indifferent. The essence of an object has something to do with the way it turns into trash. It is not necessarily what remains after the object has been used, it’s rather what is thrown away in use. And so it is with Twombly’s writings. They are the fragments of an indolence, and this makes them extremely elegant; it’s as though the only thing left after the strongly erotic act of writing were the languid fatigue of love: a garment cast aside into a corner of the page.”

Roland BarthesNon Multa Sed Multum 1976

(Quote found in Christie’s Print catalogue, for 31.3.10 Auction, King Street)

Also, there are a few choice quotes from the man himself in the NYT slideshow. Godspeed, sir.

Shades of Purple

Now this is the kind of Iraqi issue I, for one, am glad to fret over:

Baghdad has weathered invasion, occupation, sectarian warfare and suicide bombers. But the latest scourge, tastelessness, may prove the toughest to overcome.

Iraqi artists and architecture critics who shudder at each new pastel building blame a range of factors for Baghdad’s slide into tackiness: including corruption and government ineptitude, as well as everyday Iraqis who are trying to banish their grim past and are unaccustomed to having the freedom to choose any color they want.

God bless ’em. Welcome to the modern world, Iraqis. But for my money, this is the pull quote:

“Right now, when I have an exhibition at my gallery nobody comes from the government, only the art students and other artists,” Mr. Sabti said. “Taking care of the look of the city has stopped because the people who have come to power were living in villages with animals. So how did they develop their taste?”

If you guys figure anything out, do tell.

Adultery and Green Tractors

A red future or a green mist, the language of color is local.

The Duluth, Georgia-based company has an as-yet small presence in China, but Richenhagen believes the world’s No. 3 maker of tractors, combines and other farm equipment has one big advantage versus world No. 1 Deere & Co (DE.N) when it comes to cracking open that market. Around the world, Deere’s wide range of farm machines stand out for their bright green hoods.

“We have a competitive advantage compared to some of our colleagues,” Richenhagen said at the Reuters Manufacturing and Transportation Summit in Chicago. “Green is a very bad color in China.”

Specifically, green is associated with adultery — wearing a green hat is a way a man could signal that his wife had cheated on him.

“Red is the color of luck. And therefore we will go there with Massey-Ferguson,” which uses red hoods on its tractors, said Richenhagen, who comes from Germany.

Good to know. Just goes to show how much you can over-estimate and choose poorly, well or with luck. But not usually so awesome. Ly.

And speaking of business-as-usually, we turn to Russia Today (doesn’t everybody?) to see what’s going on in the Golfo de México.

Connected Inclinations

Death_of_Marat_by_David

The cloth covering Marat’s bath tub in J-L David’s painting above… how does the color portray nature, luck, money and/or envy? The and/or is important as we must, and I think we do, hold out suspicion that green renders its power in some combination of these, not excluding the possibility of all at once. It’s a particular kind of power that connects our greed with our inclination to nurture and save things, including ourselves. Bear in mind, Dr. Marat apparently suffered from a kind of skin disease from which he sought the comfort of cold baths. This alone may invoke a necessary desire to set forth an updated version of prohibitions, to identify a set of New Sins, such as they are.

But speaking of necessary desire, consider the party missing from the David composition. Charlotte Corday, his murderer:

… struck by the Government’s exactions against the Girondins… Charlotte no longer believed that a Republic would be possible. She felt that Jean-Paul Marat, who daily demanded more and more heads, was in large part responsible for the misfortunes that the French people were undergoing. She resolved to rid the country of him.On July 9, 1793, Charlotte left her cousin’s apartment and took the mail coach for Paris. She stayed at the Hotel de Providence. There she wrote a long text titled Speech to the French who are Friends of Law and Peace, which explained the act she was about to commit.In Paris, on July 13, 1793, Charlotte requested an appointment with Marat at his home at 30, rue des Cordeliers. Marat agreed; by stating that she had “information to give him” and that he could even “render a great service to France”, she managed to obtain a meeting with him. The meeting took place in his bathroom; he was in his bathtub. It was there that Charlotte killed him, using a table knife “with a dark wooden handle and a silver ferrule, bought for a few sols at the Palais-Royal”.

She was guillotined four days later; within four months, David presented the painting of his friend, arguably his best work, to the National Convention. I’ll ask this again but… green as conceptual regression, can it disallow a muted nature in a way that permits our love for wealth? Is it, in a manner, a way for us to eat our cake – and have it, too?

raising eyebrows

… but not in a good way. I saw this commercial a couple of times during what turned out to be the final Pistons-Magic playoff game last night. At first, I thought “they’ve got to be kidding.” On second viewing, I spotted all the serious green placement in the ad, and knew they weren’t.

The guy talking has a green corduroy sport coat; big potted plants are conspicuously placed among the vehicles and the simulated browsing – plants, at a car dealership? And then there’s the color of one or two models, the sign, the whole motif seamlessly jammed against the point of the campaign – a guarantee of $2.99 per gallon gas for two years, for the first 12K miles each year – as if they obviously make sense together and one simply is the other.

But they don’t and they are not. Guaranteeing a lower-than-actual, set gas price is not ecological. It begs no further investigation. Just an example of the acumen of the marketing geniuses pointing their best at our stupid. That’s what you’re always up against if you’re going to wade into TV land. The only legitimate space in the creative imagination of advertisers is that reserved for further convincing of how stupid we can be. It seems to be the only place where they believe there lies any potential at all.

Now, here is someone who thought much more highly of us, who could use green like it was just a color or something. Rest in Peaceful Collage, Sir.