I've been reading up (litterally, I was laying on my back) on Dada. Dadaism. I get it, I think (therefore I am), but it's confusing and I believe it's meant to be. It's art that's supposed to be anti-art or rather a way of saying that art, any art is not greater than anything else, art or otherwise. I think. Anyhoo....
When I read this kind of crap (See, I'm embracing Dada already!) my dormant (doormat?) brain tries to work and shoots off in a billion (say it Carl Sagan style) different...um....neuron...flashy...directions...n'stuff.
It got me thinking, and I know Warhol said this with his soupcan painting (and others before that weird little soulsucking elf and his Carol Channing hairdo), but isn't a toilet just as much a work of art as the Mona Lisa? No? Didn't someone think it up, slave over the design of it, every curve, straight line, thickness, depth....practical function, discarding what was not needed, having to do without some cosmetic beautiful thing that might be too much (or not enough) for what it is?
If a God made you, every flower, every butterfly, every color of the rainbow..didn't this God also make every rock? Dirt? Slime? Then if man makes a toilet, isn't he just as much one with God in that moment as Davinci was at any moment when he created? How about you or I? Isn't our "art" just as beautiful or relevant as all that hangs in any museum?
"Well, I'm not very good." In comparison to who (whom?)? Jackson "let me flick some paint and become genius" Pollack? Isn't all the art on every refridgerator in this world just as good or appreciated as all in the Louvre? What if one day we cleaned house and threw all of it out? Would all say "Fuck it, we'll never be able to replace all that or do better"? No, because if that were the case why would anyone anywhere be creating anything? We all make art and yet don't. Your baloney sandwich might make me weep at it's sheer luncheon meat perfection, while my rambly blogpost might make you scratch your head and say "what...the...". There's a toilet in every house, but not a Mona Lisa. Is it less a work of art because you shit in it, or possibly more?
I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, but I'm having a decent time trying to say it.
Another thing...related or not:
Say you hated green (g'head, say it), the color not the environmental movement. You hate green and you spend every available extra bit of your day (Look, blatant lack of commas!) eliminating green from your sight. No green in the house. No lawn, just rocks. High fences to block your view of neighborly greenage. You hate green....should green be capitalized here? Green. You hate Green. Green is an odd looking word isn't it? I digress...
You hate green. Loathe it. Well, what are you without green? Hasn't green become your life? Your reason for existing is to void the green. What if you somehow got rid of it all, found a "cure" for green? Do you now go on with your life or do you have to get rid of green-ish things too? No more blue-green? Do you get rid of blue and yellow now too, due to possible conspiring to make green? At what point do you become one with the thing you want nothing of? Aren't you forever locked in eachothers(two words?) embrace?
I ask these questions because I cannot fathom how so called "Non-conformists" can't see that there is no possible way to NOT conform to something.
For instance, I recall being a young Punk/New Wave skater kid. I rattled off all the crap about Anarchy....being yourself....not conforming to what society does, thinks, blah blah blah.
Well, I can recall my epiphany on conformity. I was 15. I had the silly haircut, wore all black attire, had my leather jacket (Gabba gabba hey)....and I'm sitting in the corner of this teen club whilst this girl, Courtney, rattled on and on to this preppy college boy doing a paper on Punk (or trying to nail little Goth hotties, who knows...) about how we're all anti this and anti that and we're our own free thinking individuals who do our own thing yaddity blah bleeger blah....
Meanwhile, I'm getting this in one ear and looking around the room.
Group of Skinheads*? Check
Group of guys and girls who all look like The Cure? Check.
20 or so Mohawks? Check.
Flock of Seagulls/long bangs folk (my jackass self included)? Check.
Geebus on toast! WE ALL FUCKING LOOK THE SAME! I had seen the enemy (enema?), and it was us! I felt stupid. Worse, I was completely surrounded by idiots. I'd heard the "We're not like everybody else!" line from all of them. This was no new movement, radical ideal, it was crap. "Non-comformity has a conformity all it's own" is right. I'd allowed myself to dupe m'self. Dumbass. I became the Abyss (good movie, not what I mean. Screw you, Neitzche!) what with all my staring.
Again, don't know what I mean, but it's scary how I can ramble on like this when I don't do drugs and haven't had a beer in days, huh?
Methinks my attempt at depth has been wasted, much like all the time you lost reading this.
"I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time. I'll give it right back, one of these days." - Voodoo Chile/Jimi Hendrix
My house smeels like lemons and my girlfriend snores quite softly.
Smooches.
*I cut the Skinheads some slack, because they know they're conforming. The whole point of joining is to conform, be the same. Still though, there's anti-establishment bullshit involved, and I'm not even talking about the Nazi Skinheads that make all Skinheads look bad.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Parrot, Ox and Contra Diction
Posted by Jerk Of All Trades 2.0 at 1:15 AM
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4 comments:
No, I think you are spot on, Jerky. What strikes me most is that you had your epiphany at FIFTEEN, an age where most of us were so desperate to join, to fit, to belong. You were already an existentialist without knowing what one is. LOL.
I sometimes see these kids in their neo-punk attire, and want to shake them a bit and say, "don't you know you're wearing a uniform?? Don't you know you're spouting an empty rhetoric??"
we're all just a bunch of sheep...and even those of us that try to buck the system are all just bucking it in the same way...we are, after all, just animals...follow the heard and all will be well.
i'm happy you've got a snoring gf by the way...it is good to hear you is happy.
I just remember that I couldn't ever get my 'uniform' or my state of being together, properly. My parents wouldn't let me get the 'metalhead' gear, but they would let me grow my hair out 'somewhat'. They wanted me to play sports, and I wanted to play music. I wanted to take philosophy classes, and they wanted me to take math classes... Ugh! I was never going in one singular direction at one time... You remember that, dontcha, Jerk?
Sorry I'm late; Blogger blocked me last time.
It's important to remember that the Dadists were more political than aesthetic. They were operated under the misguided notion that the Arts were somehow important in politics. Which, clearly, they were wrong.
Conformity means comfort, and if it comforts you to think you are more unique than other people, that's what you will conform to-- people whom you percieve to be more individual than others. Thus drama geeks.
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