fraud
i'm still reading savage detectives and I'm at this part after a lawyer is reminiscing about his first meeting with belano, after having fired belano from his journal. he says that belano knew that he was an awful poet and it cut me.
at my college we had this art show and sale (maybe a really bad idea on my part to participate). i needed the money pretty bad and i put some paintings that i'd been working on in it. i was still hooked on surrealism and neo-expressionism and i'd been listening to isis a lot. what this means is that i'd painted some really abstract paintings and had been burning with existentialist doubt. i named one of my paintings panopticon, after the album by isis, not really understanding the full theory about panopticon (which incidentally is not really a hard theory to understand). i liked the sound of the word, and the vague idea i had about it only enhanced the mystery of the image. anyway, i happened to sell the painting (the only one of a series of completely different images) to a lawyer in the city for about $600. the money was welcome, but when he came to pick it up and talk to me, he asked me what panopticon meant, or what the painting was about, and i found myself lost for words. it wasn't really about anything, but i hadn't admitted it to myself. it was a beautiful picture, i thought, but it wasn't a reflection of me at all, everything that happened was just chance, a little struggle with the aesthetics. he said he thought it was spooky, and i told him that panopticon was a term used by bentham, a structure where prisoners kind of watch over each other. then he told me he thought that a panopticon was something where people thought they were being watched, but couldn't see the watchman. i had to back down from giving any impression of having any knowledge about my work and i felt like a fraud. i still feel like a fraud for that moment, and for everything that came after. i should've listened to myself in first year. anyone can learn to paint or draw, to sculpt, to use materials, and anyone can become intelligent, but there are few that actually have the spirit to produce something genuinely, and to know what it is that they're producing.
that said, i'm not an artist. maybe it's that experience and not the whole school experience that i haven't really touched anything since, that i felt defeated. i wish i was unmasked, hung, or something. or, i wish i could come to terms with that, however weak and soluble a moment that might be. i wish i could blame it on immaturity, on being young and doing stupid things, but i don't know if i've changed all that much. in a way, i feel like i've cheated him, like i've shown him something that didn't exist. i wish i could pay him back the money, take the painting (if it isn't hiding in a basement), and leave it in a back alley somewhere. but, i realize too (or maybe i just hope), that i am not really a big part of that painting. in the naming, in the deception, but that is it. the mystery of the image doesn't belong to me, and 'panopticon' certainly doesn't belong to me. as a matchmaker, i'm a charlatan, but i hope that can be forgiven.
God is a mystery. I, however, am clear as glass. I will really try to move myself.
also, i'm a little choked at the situation. i'm stuck, but i'm the sticky bit. i need a job, but i can't seem to get around to help myself. the only job available in this town is at subway, out on the highway, working with girls in grade ten, and i don't even know if i'd get the job. once my documents come through i can apply to where i want to be. i really want and i think i really need the medic's job. i really think i could do it well, and i think i even need it. not for the money, to better myself.
at my college we had this art show and sale (maybe a really bad idea on my part to participate). i needed the money pretty bad and i put some paintings that i'd been working on in it. i was still hooked on surrealism and neo-expressionism and i'd been listening to isis a lot. what this means is that i'd painted some really abstract paintings and had been burning with existentialist doubt. i named one of my paintings panopticon, after the album by isis, not really understanding the full theory about panopticon (which incidentally is not really a hard theory to understand). i liked the sound of the word, and the vague idea i had about it only enhanced the mystery of the image. anyway, i happened to sell the painting (the only one of a series of completely different images) to a lawyer in the city for about $600. the money was welcome, but when he came to pick it up and talk to me, he asked me what panopticon meant, or what the painting was about, and i found myself lost for words. it wasn't really about anything, but i hadn't admitted it to myself. it was a beautiful picture, i thought, but it wasn't a reflection of me at all, everything that happened was just chance, a little struggle with the aesthetics. he said he thought it was spooky, and i told him that panopticon was a term used by bentham, a structure where prisoners kind of watch over each other. then he told me he thought that a panopticon was something where people thought they were being watched, but couldn't see the watchman. i had to back down from giving any impression of having any knowledge about my work and i felt like a fraud. i still feel like a fraud for that moment, and for everything that came after. i should've listened to myself in first year. anyone can learn to paint or draw, to sculpt, to use materials, and anyone can become intelligent, but there are few that actually have the spirit to produce something genuinely, and to know what it is that they're producing.
that said, i'm not an artist. maybe it's that experience and not the whole school experience that i haven't really touched anything since, that i felt defeated. i wish i was unmasked, hung, or something. or, i wish i could come to terms with that, however weak and soluble a moment that might be. i wish i could blame it on immaturity, on being young and doing stupid things, but i don't know if i've changed all that much. in a way, i feel like i've cheated him, like i've shown him something that didn't exist. i wish i could pay him back the money, take the painting (if it isn't hiding in a basement), and leave it in a back alley somewhere. but, i realize too (or maybe i just hope), that i am not really a big part of that painting. in the naming, in the deception, but that is it. the mystery of the image doesn't belong to me, and 'panopticon' certainly doesn't belong to me. as a matchmaker, i'm a charlatan, but i hope that can be forgiven.
God is a mystery. I, however, am clear as glass. I will really try to move myself.
also, i'm a little choked at the situation. i'm stuck, but i'm the sticky bit. i need a job, but i can't seem to get around to help myself. the only job available in this town is at subway, out on the highway, working with girls in grade ten, and i don't even know if i'd get the job. once my documents come through i can apply to where i want to be. i really want and i think i really need the medic's job. i really think i could do it well, and i think i even need it. not for the money, to better myself.