More Art, now.
I was thinking about words, how I didn't like the idea that "talent" and "skill" are different things (they aren't) or that training and inspiration have different intrinsic value (they don't), or that you can't be trained to be a better artist than you're born (you can), or that you can be born a better artist than a scientist (you can't). Art is a type of job and science is a type of job and the only thing that distinguishes jobs is how much work you put into them, instead of how much work you put into the areas of your life that appear to matter (they don't).
And in the process I thought about the phrase "more art," and what it might mean. Specifically the way it works as a quantity: If you say "I want more art in this room," it means you want maybe six paintings instead of two (if you only wanted three paintings instead of two, you wouldn't have bothered saying anything, because art isn't that important anyway (it isn't) ). It doesn't mean you want a different two paintings that are somehow more art than the original two paintings. If art is an intrinsic property, and I tend to doubt at all, it definitely isn't a quantifiable intrinsic property. Not the way we use it, anyway.
But if you could have a painting that satisfied that desire for more art, then the person who painted it, that person would be more artist, wouldn't you say? And that idea, the idea of being a more artist, it appealed to all (most of) my sensibilities of once: Absurd, grandiose, futile (graniosity and absurdity resolve into futility), and geek sassy. I love the geek sass. The internet is made from it.
So I've started a new art movement, called More Art. This is in an era when nobody names art movements any more, and this follows an era when artists came up with names for their new art movements faster than they came up with new art (to the extent that naming new art movements fails to qualify as art in itself.) Nonetheless, I can still call myself a More Artist, and when some monstrous yuppie looks at his wall and says "gee, Kathy" (he is married to a woman named Kathy, whose face is pretty and whose tits are tasteful in size) "I believe we could use some more art on this wall." Well, then, she will have two choices: Call the normal art dealer, who will sell them a lot of paintings, or she can call me, who will sell her just one thing, which is cheaper and more idea-efficient (to the extent that each individual painting occupies its own idea, which truthfully is negligible). In the end, I win, and maybe sleep with Kathy while her husband Tom is at work. (Tom is a venture capitalist, and because no one on earth knows what that really means it provides him with an unchallengable excuse for disappearing for long periods of time, at great frequency. This leaves Kathy feeling lonely and unwanted, and I look to exploit her need for validation in order to obtain pleasure and satisfaction for myself.)
Incidentally, my aunt and uncle are named Kathy and Tom, but they have nothing to do with this story. Tom is not a venture capitalist. Kathy is not vulnerable. And they are definitely not yuppies.
But Tom does have a cabin. And, as you'll recall from the previous paragraph, he is my uncle.
Uncle.
Tom.
's Cabin.
I don't know what to do with words, really. I don't.
And in the process I thought about the phrase "more art," and what it might mean. Specifically the way it works as a quantity: If you say "I want more art in this room," it means you want maybe six paintings instead of two (if you only wanted three paintings instead of two, you wouldn't have bothered saying anything, because art isn't that important anyway (it isn't) ). It doesn't mean you want a different two paintings that are somehow more art than the original two paintings. If art is an intrinsic property, and I tend to doubt at all, it definitely isn't a quantifiable intrinsic property. Not the way we use it, anyway.
But if you could have a painting that satisfied that desire for more art, then the person who painted it, that person would be more artist, wouldn't you say? And that idea, the idea of being a more artist, it appealed to all (most of) my sensibilities of once: Absurd, grandiose, futile (graniosity and absurdity resolve into futility), and geek sassy. I love the geek sass. The internet is made from it.
So I've started a new art movement, called More Art. This is in an era when nobody names art movements any more, and this follows an era when artists came up with names for their new art movements faster than they came up with new art (to the extent that naming new art movements fails to qualify as art in itself.) Nonetheless, I can still call myself a More Artist, and when some monstrous yuppie looks at his wall and says "gee, Kathy" (he is married to a woman named Kathy, whose face is pretty and whose tits are tasteful in size) "I believe we could use some more art on this wall." Well, then, she will have two choices: Call the normal art dealer, who will sell them a lot of paintings, or she can call me, who will sell her just one thing, which is cheaper and more idea-efficient (to the extent that each individual painting occupies its own idea, which truthfully is negligible). In the end, I win, and maybe sleep with Kathy while her husband Tom is at work. (Tom is a venture capitalist, and because no one on earth knows what that really means it provides him with an unchallengable excuse for disappearing for long periods of time, at great frequency. This leaves Kathy feeling lonely and unwanted, and I look to exploit her need for validation in order to obtain pleasure and satisfaction for myself.)
Incidentally, my aunt and uncle are named Kathy and Tom, but they have nothing to do with this story. Tom is not a venture capitalist. Kathy is not vulnerable. And they are definitely not yuppies.
But Tom does have a cabin. And, as you'll recall from the previous paragraph, he is my uncle.
Uncle.
Tom.
's Cabin.
I don't know what to do with words, really. I don't.