Back to Romneyville

I don't want you to get me wrong about something.  I've just been looking at and thinking about the great art of the western world, and I know the difference between changing the way people see and making things that are fun to look at.  When I say my photography will get better with time, I don't mean the way Cezanne or Matisse or Picasso or Modigliani did.  I know that everything we see in photography today was made possible by Robert Frank and Diane Arbus.  I'm just saying that I might be as good as some of the imitators if I'm lucky.  And that is really just the talk of a man who was at one moment in the grips of some mania looking at what he had just done.  Good enough for me, I guess.  I'm a very good judge of such things, but I am willing to admit that I have a weakness for the goodness of my own things.  

No.  Back that up.  It is no weakness.  I truly am convinced.  Tell your friends.  

Yesterday was a travel day.  A two and a half hour flight from New York takes about six hours when everything is calculated.  And you'd better have rides or you can double the cost of the airfare.  Still, things went smoothly and traveling gives you time to reflect.  Sitting and thinking isn't such a bad thing.  
Before the travel, though, I had the morning and some afternoon in New York on one of its truly remarkable days, the air dry, the sky that crazy transparent blue, the temperature in the sixties--just perfect.  I went to MoMA.  When you go, make certain that you start at the top floor and work your way down. Just do it.  You will be happier.  On the sixth floor, you will see something new.  Yesterday, new was good.  I go to museums to steal ideas, and yesterday, I think, I was quite a thief.  The work was interesting, and it is heartening to know that you can get into MoMA without changing the landscape of art as I mentioned before.  These works were just interesting to look at and owed much to what had come before it.  And now I will owe even more (if I can find the time).  

Having stolen much, I went to the fifth floor and visited old friends, the moderns.  I've seen them all so many times now that I don't need to look at them all.  Yesterday, I was noting the brushstrokes of different artists or in different paintings by the same artist.  In recent years, I have enjoyed looking at the American modernists more than the Europeans.  There is a real difference in subject matter, the loneliness and alienation of American life so obvious in the one, different from the strange oddities of the Germans and the succoring decadence of those painting in France.  Jejune observations, perhaps, but succinct at least.  

The surprise yesterday came by way of the second floor.  The Quay Brothers.  It is not my sort of thing, but Jesus, the body of work was impressive and overwhelming.  I guess I'm embarrassed that I'd never been aware of them before, but Kappow!--I am now.  Here is a link to what purports to be all of their short films.  I haven't watched it, so I don't know what you are in for.  I just Googled it and found it now. If it is wrong. . . mea culpa.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvI9jdV5teg&feature=related

I didn't watch much of the short films as I was rushed, but the walls of the many, many rooms of the gallery were hung with their art, and boy did I steal from that.  I loved the paintings and drawings and multi-media images more than the films that I didn't really watch.  So. . . I'm not vouching for what you will see, but I have a strong hunch that some of you will like it much.  

The hours passed at MoMA and suddenly it was time to go, but I passed through the cafeteria which seemed new to me, and I am a fool for museum cafes, so I ordered a three cheese platter with olives and flat breads and a big glass of chianti.  I had to.  And so, the museum supported by my generous givings, I looked out over the museum crowd.  There is nothing like a museum crowd.  They are always more beautiful than the crowd at large.  Looking at art, I am absolutely positive, makes people smarter and prettier.  Without doubt.  Look for yourself.  You will see.  

The crowd getting on the plane back to my own hometown was not so pretty.  They were anything but.  If art makes you smarter and prettier, a land of commercial enterprise--a city that is a test tube for American chain store tastes--makes you fatter and dumber.  And that is what has happened to me, I know, living among them, taking the foreman's job, traveling less than I should.  They have made me as hideous as they are.  

And so I am back in Romneyville, and it is morning, and the factory whistle blows.  I woke up excited, wanting to grab my camera and get an early start, but then I remembered.   Not today, friends.  I go back to the pat phrases and artificial smiles that are meant to hide the grimaces and horror that everyone surely feels.  Someone will talk about the Emmys, and people will agree or disagree.  And I. . . will slap on that smile and nod my head and say that it is all just horse shit anyway and watch as people begin to back up toward the door.