Anodyne
Saturday, September 27, 2008
 

Brisk west wind, light cloud. Waking in scattered grey light feeling better than I have in years. The sense of some anger lifting over night. In the street it's business as usual: a citizen tugging his dog away from the puddled puke at the bus stop; the Japanese tourist incredulous at the driver who can't change her $50 and won't wait while she hits up every passenger on board with a complicated pantomime request for coins. Pigeons bank and flutter above the stalled vehicle, tracing a complicated series of arcs across the brick face of the hotel opposite. What I'm after here is a Dave Gibbons picture: this fits there, and this behind it. A Renaissance perspective drawing, the "deep frame" of space beyond the picture plane. The pigeons don't fit in, they complicate things. "Morality is a matter of remaining consistent with oneself within the complexity of social relationships." (Robert C. Morgan). Spatial relationships too. Things interlocking. Stephen Shore's scrubby Texas arroyos and green Montana hillsides. "One thing that makes [these] later landscapes successful. . .is the illusion of depth. In these, I learned a new way of creating that illusion without relying on the spatially articulated structures found in a built environment." (S. Shore in correspondence). So a good picture (or word picture) should articulate the spaces between things, the places where different objects (different people, different social relationships) meet. The brush of skin on skin. "Erotics of sight." Dilla's Donuts (the morning's soundtrack, remember?) and its conjunction of minor elements: A's drums; B's strings; C's keys; D's scratches. Dan Savage's campsite rule: leave your lovers better than you found them. Art, too.
- posted by cjb @ 6:33 PM


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