I, etcetera (1978) 2

 

I am nearing the end of Sontag's Kafkaesque allegory "The Old Complaints" (1974). Not sure at what point I gave up trying to ascertain which "organization" Sontag's ungendered "I" is trying to quit (The Temple of Non-Fiction?), but it's been a while now. At this point my thoughts recall the organizations I have joined in my life, those I have come to know through service, and in the course of serving learning how they work (and don't work), what they are built on, their histories, how some (like some of my country's state-sponsored Artist-Run Centres), have become entirely about their insistence, how I have become alienated from them, yet stayed on, awaiting a time and a place to leave them, as Sontag's "I" has been waiting since she joined the organization as a teen, when Sontag herself started publishing her writings.

Sontag scholars note her legendary seriousness, her deep focus, yet in her dozen or so short fiction works we see the author reaching out her arms as if to summon the flighty, the ludic, the absurd. It is strange to read Fiction Sontag. I am tempted to say she is trying too hard, but that's not fair; she's remans the serious, truth-seeking intellectual, but tucked in a fiction, airing (confessing?) issues that are relevant today, as she did eight years before "The Old Complaints" was first published when, in 1966, she wrote: "Today's America, with Ronald Reagan the new daddy of California and John Wayne chawing spare ribs in the White House, is pretty much the same Yahooland that Mencken was describing." H. L. Mencken was commenting on America during the first half of the 20th century; Sontag's domain was its second half.

"A summing up. I accuse the organization of depriving me of my innocence. Of complicating my will.

(I don't deny that it has improved my mind, taught me to see the world in a truer, less falsely expectant way. But what use is truth if it makes you despise other people? In despising others, you only despise yourself.)" (130)

Found Topiary

Twenty-five years ago the neighbour to our west planted a false cypress at the southeast corner of his property. Over the years the shrub grew up to become what some might call a "feature". But the new neighbours had other plans, which was fine because those plans included an arbutus, and that, though technically a vine, is my favourite tree.

For a few days the dug-out false cypress lay on the boulevard, awaiting a Facebook reader to come by and take it. When there were no takers, we took it, planting it in a space taken up by a juniper, which in turn was moved to the bank of heathers below.

Last week I was returning from a walk to Trout Lake when I noticed the false cypress looked like a bird (baby ostrich?) pecking at the earth. A snip here, a snip there -- even more so! My snipping in no way makes this a work of topiary, because the bird was already there when I noticed it. All I did was return it to the earth, take a sprig off here and there.

Tales of the Gigabyte Economy

From another commissioning body. This time an invitation to ZOOM-up with two other art critics and discuss the question, "Whither Art Criticism?" I said "Yes" to the commissioning body, and submitted the title of my opening remarks: "Sociology Has Readymade the Museum and the Critic Is Back on the Job". A short time later, this email reply: "That's not what we had in mind."

Public Announcement

It is with mixed feelings

that I announce a cure for Life:

Heartbreak

Postscript:

My apologies to those I confused, upset, offended. 

The post above was not intended as a "personal confession," only what I came up with after I was asked (under duress) to design a grief-themed t-shirt to be worn in the name of "public art." I'd thought about adding the commission as context, but wanted to see how the sentiment would be received on its own. The commissioning body was initially taken with the sentiment and its design; however, upon review, found it "too ambiguous" to serve its purposes. The body expected a degree of ambiguity, but not to the "degree" I was said to have "taken it."

Again, my apologies.

CoV Road Crew

With the asphalt dumped and spread over the gravel-filled trench, the roller begins its compression. Here the driver moves south to north, the noon sun behind him, his machine's shadow darker than any asphalt.

Once done, there is a 2"-3" difference between the compressed asphalt and the surface of the road. Another dump of asphalt before the trench and the road are flush.

About three metres to the right was a smaller job, not a trench but a Malevich. Of course it is one thing to fill this square, quite another to cut it into the road, as a previous crew did when they adjusted the water and sewage lines. You will note that only those shadows that appear on the square are darker than those around it.

Diagonal Composition

 

The duplex across the street is complete but for the landscaping. Yesterday a City of Vancouver crew arrived to seal up the work that allows water to/sewage from the two homes (where before there was only one), An unseen someone drove the truck, another the roller it pulled on a trailer behind it. A third person, the most seasoned of the group, provided a friendly face to the neighbours. The fourth, the proverbial new kid, has been around long enough to know his role and, out of defiance, self-preservation or a little of both, performed as if in self-parody.

The 2021 NHL Playoffs

With his team down 6-1 in the Third Period, Golden Knight Ryan Reeves took it upon himself to send a message that his team would not be easy pickings. The form this message took was a jab to the chin of the Avalanche's Ryan Graves before throwing him to the ice and applying his knee to the front and back of his head.

That both men are well over six feet tall and 220 lbs. does not excuse this as a game-within-the-game battle of the titans. As of 11:00 A.M. EDT of the following day, nhl.com had yet to make mention of the incident in their Stanley Cup Playoff coverage, despite the fact that a match penalty (which Reeves received) is always reported on. (Later that day it was announced that Reeves would receive a two-game suspension.)

In other hockey news, Ron MacLean's homophobic remarks a few nights earlier occasioned a pictorial response from hockey analyst and former NHL defensemen Kevin Bieksa (whom the remarks were indirectly directed at) during a subsequent between periods panel. On the wall behind Bieksa, next to the picture of a shirtless person to whom MacLean was referring, stood a picture of MacLean looking down while apologizing to those he had offended.