artsy fartsy
So I’ve been mulling over something about art.
Truly good art inspires you to do it yourself.
It gives the audience something of empowerment.
It goes beyond the guitar riff that gets stuck in your head–it is the guitar lick that causes you to jump up on a chair and play air guitar.
It goes beyond a painting or picture that makes you ponder and appreciate the genius of the artist–it makes you want to go paint your own picture, take your own photograph.
It does not flatter or venerate the artist, but instead makes the ordinary extraordinary; the extraordinary ordinary in a way that opens your eyes to the tragic, comic beauty of this thing we call life.
It is complex simplicity that is honest and humble and mysterious and bewildering…
It is why the greatest, most-threatening truths are contained in both scripture and song, folktale and epic. Why they are echoed in every honest children’s story and every heart-felt pagan myth.
… And in (somewhat) unrelated news, I am probably going to be pasting up rough drafts of writing up here. I work well with deadlines and objectives, so I’ll be putting un-edited thoughts up as they come. They might be raw, so don’t consider it a presentation, but rather the occasional (mutual) sneak peek into my subconscious.
… And I want to watch this. Badly.
… And now it’s time for me to go clean the tub.
maine
maine, originally uploaded by quavermultimedia.
Due to a lack of a photoshop –> due to a lack of the new iMac I want –> due to a lack of cash* –> due to life, this picture hasn’t been edited at all. It’s begging for a good crop/color adjustment. Hopefully I’ll be up and running with the right equipment again, before too long.
* Plus I’m waiting for the new mac os.
So apparently the only way I can change the css/html on this site is by upgrading. Very sneaky.
That’s not that bad, come to think of it. Now if the design ever sucks (the current font does, in particular, imho) I can just blame it on that.
Cool.
Here’s a dude who has mp3s of Sufjan Steven’s (first?) band, Marzuki. Although everyone’s favorite indie man doesn’t sing on it, it’s interesting. Oh, and the brother of Dan Haseltine was a member.
In other music news, I continue to develop an (unhealthy? humorous?) interest in the Smashing Pumpkins, whom I’ve never sampled until this point in time. Their latest single, “That’s the Way” is…good, despite a truly awful video.
If something catches your interest, you can say that it’s been piqued. Not peaked. Just found that out today after asserting it was “peaked.” I guess I had been climbing over too many of them recently. And thus the English major continues to lose any confidence in his degree.
Getting back…
To blogging? Perhaps.
A few links, for no reason at all (except those of a not-so-subtle nature (pimp-like in essence)):
Writing from our recent soils trip to Turkey and Jordan. Complete with pictures and belly-dancing tales.
My photo page. Wedding photos coming soon…rock’n'roll in the meantime, plus a sampling of other work.
Two great archive.org concerts: Kaki King and Over the Rhine. Good, good stuff.
Writer’s thought of the day: story about a weathered chimney sweep who tells stories past a wad of tobacco of a guy falling off a roof and biting his tongue halfway off. Or breaking all his bones. Or flying. Or singing and dancing on rooftops in London with a nimble-tongued, vaguely sultry dame named…wait a moment.
My girl is reading the “Sword in the Stone” to my delighted ears at the moment. (Have I mentioned she’s pretty hot?) …if I could write a book half as humorous, literate, poetic, and over-all brilliant as this one, I would die a very happy man.
