things I'm reading in the near once and future

Jul 25, 2007 21:06

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi: I've had this for several years (it was a present) but it had never been the right time to read it, until Sunday, post-Harry Potter. It's about the joys of reading, and its reality, its middle Eastern setting, it being about women, and the complexity of its thinking have all been perfect refreshment after the brightly colored mental candy of the weekend. I've never read any Nabokov, he's never appealed to me, but now maybe I would. What she says about his distinction between the banal, brutal "real" world and the "fake" world of the imagination could be a good place to go.

Art on Paper magazine, July/August issue: The art world - what does that mean? Does it mean anything to me personally? There's so vastly many artists, it's all so confusing. I can sort of relate to these people, yet they seem so in this weird self-referential world and also so self-consciously commenting on that real world thing. What does art mean to people these days anyway? Why do artists seem so obsessed with ordinary objects? Is it because they've lost their meaning through sheer volume?

Scientific American magazine, August issue: Oh, Scientific American... I've been having such a hard time keeping up with this lately. Or, to be more accurate, I haven't been. I did crack open this month's issue though, due to the beautiful eye picture on the cover, and I might get through it. But I am overwhelmed with information these days, and seem to be forgetting what I'm doing from moment to moment.

websites and PDFs about students' and parents' rights to privacy as they concern surveys students do in school: uh, yeah. This is for work, I hope you know that. You happy unconcerned people have no idea of the thorny issues at stake here. I'm not kidding about this. Just be thankful I'm not going to tell you about it.

B&W magazine, July/August issue: Ah, beautiful, beautiful black and white photos...sometimes a little the same, but so peaceful, so nice. You make me want to dust off my camera(s) and contribute to that information overload I was talking about. And really, it's satisfying, but is it meaningful to take a good photo anymore? What does that mean to anyone but yourself and your mother? (My mother brags that my pictures look just as good upside down, so there!)

Well, that about wraps it up for god... if anyone has any great art insights, such as, what does it all mean, when you get right down to it, could they please share? Thanks.

art on paper, b&w, azar nafisi, nabokov, scientific american

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