Well, after yesterday's visit to the Art Institute in Chicago I must say I enjoyed reading this thread. Consider:
In the Modern Art gallery - around 13 framed 8-1/2x11 sheets of white graph paper, island mounted and framed in white, portrait, with a single pencil-drawn diagonal line drawn corner to corner, from NW to SE. That's it. Nothing more. Whither narrative (they can't speak - but do they need to??? - I sure as heck couldn't figure it out)? Whither metaphor?? Hmmm...
Upon reading the artist's explanation, it turns out these were inspired by his now-dead partner's medical readouts of his T-cell count, which was basically in decline as he died of AIDS. So the artist made these graph pages, and framed them. Interesting - as far as it goes. Empathy? Of course - dealing with death and dying must invoke that. But art? I'm still having trouble with that.
On the other hand, if narrative is an important aspect of art, then these works are loaded with it - only when one understands the narrative behind the work does the work suddenly come alive. Very odd. I find myself continuing to reflect on these works today as I write this. And research it (check this out: http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/singular_forms/highlights_13a.html ).
Dunno. Certainly has implications for our work in photography. Certainly makes me question even bothering with "pretty picture" compositions any more.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
A couple black/white pix I'm working on.
I took this shot a few days ago, out the window of my car while I was stopped at a traffic light. I find myself doing that, or more often wanting to do that, a lot. Makes me wish, sometimes, that I had a hood mounted camera or something like that, where I could snap a shot where ever I happened to be looking when I wanted to. 
This is a straight b/w conversion from a color raw file. I was trolling through a bunch of raws that I hadn't looked at before when I found it. I immediately thought it would look good as b/w, so I converted it in Photoshop. Did some minor adjustments to the tone, but it's otherwise pretty much a straight, full frame shot.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Greed - the real driver of the Battle at Harvard?
Mr. Atlas’s assertion that Harvard’s woes are a function of this decade’s culture war is presented as a self-evident truth that bears no further inquiry (NY Times, Sunday, February 27, 2005, The Week In Review, p 14). That the woes exist is certainly beyond debate. That their source lies in our nation’s left/right, red/blue, secular/religious axes should not be conceded so quickly, however.
To me the turmoil at Harvard could just as easily be attributed to an insidious, and as-yet not much talked about, aspect of our culture. Insidious and not discussed because it is so pervasive it has become the water in which we swim – which is to say, it is transparent to us. Let us consider for a moment the dynamics of 21st century capitalism, and the greed it has inspired.
As the capitalists themselves continue to be swept up in corruption and scandals we can account for it as overzealousness on the part of the perpetrators – they are capitalists, so that is what they do. Sometimes they just get carried away. And then there are the bloated salaries bestowed upon entertainment figures, which we endorse, if not envy, as a way of adding to their fantastical lives which we embrace for their escapism value.
So far, so good. “Greed is good, greed is right, greed clarifies…,” to quote a line from a late ‘80s film that did a nice job of capturing the zeitgeist of its era. This is what we’ve come to expect, so the fact that things get a little out of hand now and then is no surprise. And the NHL is the latest entertainment franchise forced to cancel it’s season due to getting a little out of hand.
Through the nineties, however, we add to corporate titans and entertainment superstars politicians and public servants as the latest casualties of our greedy culture. The county executive who is discovered to have overseen the padding out of pension plans for long-term county employees, resulting in huge obligations that local taxpayers will have to shoulder. The nonprofit leader running an inner city alternative choice school who is found to be diverting school funds to his personal accounts.
So now we have to accept that civil servants, people who we trust to have put the community’s interests ahead of their own, just by virtue of the fact that they took the job in the first place, now these servants can no longer be fully trusted to be acting in the local community's interests. This is a turning point. It’s one thing when people whose primary purpose is to make money overstep ethical or legal lines and find themselves in trouble for it.
But when people who have signed up to serve the community in local politics or nonprofit public service agencies are caught using their position to line their own pockets, then we have entered a new era. I’m not talking about national or even state-level pols, either. (Can you name a president of the United States, or a governor, past or recent, who was accused of using their office to increase their own material good? National and state level players are about power, not personal wealth – at least not while they’re in office. Aren’t they?).
The greed that was previously limited to the capitalist coliseum that is business American-style has suddenly found its way into the institutions we have entrusted with running and improving our communities – institutions run by self-less, dedicated individuals who have decided to follow a higher calling in spite of the relative lack of material gain that calling would confer.
And finally, we come to the Harvard situation, where now it is not just individuals within the institutions taking advantage of their trusted positions for personal gain - that is already becoming a familiar story. Now we find these individuals - these leaders - becoming more sophisticated, using their institutions as vehicles for realizing their own corrupted dreams of money, power and success. In the process they transform these institutions, making them more like a listed corporation – that faceless legal entity that is capable of all manner of wrong-doing, but almost impossible to prosecute criminally when its actions are discovered (you can’t put Enron in jail – there is, and never was, an Enron – only people who hide behind its corporate charter, and run for cover when things go south).
This latest development replaces the Main Street focus we once rightly assumed our public institutions had with something more at home on Wall Street. Nowhere is this juxtaposition of ostensible versus actual mission more apparent than at our elite universities. Why are tuitions climbing at such a fast rate? Look at the salaries of professors and administrators. Were these not once noble professions, populated by individuals who emerged from a process of self-selection, honored to be allowed the chance to do their research and teach at an institution of such heritage? A good wage may have been the norm - but not a great wage. A decent living, yes. The life of a rock star, no. Not any more.
It’s a competitive market out there, baby, and you’ve got to pay these prima donna Dons what they are worth on Wall Street, or it’s hasta la vista.
The transformation of our nation, of our culture, is now complete. We have local politicians and nonprofit leaders who prioritize personal gain over public good; we have church leaders rethinking how their institutions will have to morph in order to fend off the lawsuits from not only past offences, but also current liability claims for legitimate accidents that occurred during events for which they were the sponsor. And we have our most cherished, elite institutions transitioning away from their noble heritages of self-less mission toward greedy excess and “me-first” thinking.
Most disturbing of all, however, is that no one in the US seems to think anything is amiss. Could these problems be symptoms of the evil that our detractors in other countries are accusing us of? Are we too immersed in it to see it for what it is? We all secretly want a piece of the pie, don’t we? So what’s wrong with looking out for #1, and doing what little we can to grab it when the opportunity presents itself.
As a nation we are, and for a long time have been in denial, when it comes to all things capitalist. The Harvard battle is not about political leanings - it is about trying to reconcile the dissonance that is now an embedded feature of our country's culture. Maybe the Harvard issues will wake us up to that reality. (But I doubt it).
To me the turmoil at Harvard could just as easily be attributed to an insidious, and as-yet not much talked about, aspect of our culture. Insidious and not discussed because it is so pervasive it has become the water in which we swim – which is to say, it is transparent to us. Let us consider for a moment the dynamics of 21st century capitalism, and the greed it has inspired.
As the capitalists themselves continue to be swept up in corruption and scandals we can account for it as overzealousness on the part of the perpetrators – they are capitalists, so that is what they do. Sometimes they just get carried away. And then there are the bloated salaries bestowed upon entertainment figures, which we endorse, if not envy, as a way of adding to their fantastical lives which we embrace for their escapism value.
So far, so good. “Greed is good, greed is right, greed clarifies…,” to quote a line from a late ‘80s film that did a nice job of capturing the zeitgeist of its era. This is what we’ve come to expect, so the fact that things get a little out of hand now and then is no surprise. And the NHL is the latest entertainment franchise forced to cancel it’s season due to getting a little out of hand.
Through the nineties, however, we add to corporate titans and entertainment superstars politicians and public servants as the latest casualties of our greedy culture. The county executive who is discovered to have overseen the padding out of pension plans for long-term county employees, resulting in huge obligations that local taxpayers will have to shoulder. The nonprofit leader running an inner city alternative choice school who is found to be diverting school funds to his personal accounts.
So now we have to accept that civil servants, people who we trust to have put the community’s interests ahead of their own, just by virtue of the fact that they took the job in the first place, now these servants can no longer be fully trusted to be acting in the local community's interests. This is a turning point. It’s one thing when people whose primary purpose is to make money overstep ethical or legal lines and find themselves in trouble for it.
But when people who have signed up to serve the community in local politics or nonprofit public service agencies are caught using their position to line their own pockets, then we have entered a new era. I’m not talking about national or even state-level pols, either. (Can you name a president of the United States, or a governor, past or recent, who was accused of using their office to increase their own material good? National and state level players are about power, not personal wealth – at least not while they’re in office. Aren’t they?).
The greed that was previously limited to the capitalist coliseum that is business American-style has suddenly found its way into the institutions we have entrusted with running and improving our communities – institutions run by self-less, dedicated individuals who have decided to follow a higher calling in spite of the relative lack of material gain that calling would confer.
And finally, we come to the Harvard situation, where now it is not just individuals within the institutions taking advantage of their trusted positions for personal gain - that is already becoming a familiar story. Now we find these individuals - these leaders - becoming more sophisticated, using their institutions as vehicles for realizing their own corrupted dreams of money, power and success. In the process they transform these institutions, making them more like a listed corporation – that faceless legal entity that is capable of all manner of wrong-doing, but almost impossible to prosecute criminally when its actions are discovered (you can’t put Enron in jail – there is, and never was, an Enron – only people who hide behind its corporate charter, and run for cover when things go south).
This latest development replaces the Main Street focus we once rightly assumed our public institutions had with something more at home on Wall Street. Nowhere is this juxtaposition of ostensible versus actual mission more apparent than at our elite universities. Why are tuitions climbing at such a fast rate? Look at the salaries of professors and administrators. Were these not once noble professions, populated by individuals who emerged from a process of self-selection, honored to be allowed the chance to do their research and teach at an institution of such heritage? A good wage may have been the norm - but not a great wage. A decent living, yes. The life of a rock star, no. Not any more.
It’s a competitive market out there, baby, and you’ve got to pay these prima donna Dons what they are worth on Wall Street, or it’s hasta la vista.
The transformation of our nation, of our culture, is now complete. We have local politicians and nonprofit leaders who prioritize personal gain over public good; we have church leaders rethinking how their institutions will have to morph in order to fend off the lawsuits from not only past offences, but also current liability claims for legitimate accidents that occurred during events for which they were the sponsor. And we have our most cherished, elite institutions transitioning away from their noble heritages of self-less mission toward greedy excess and “me-first” thinking.
Most disturbing of all, however, is that no one in the US seems to think anything is amiss. Could these problems be symptoms of the evil that our detractors in other countries are accusing us of? Are we too immersed in it to see it for what it is? We all secretly want a piece of the pie, don’t we? So what’s wrong with looking out for #1, and doing what little we can to grab it when the opportunity presents itself.
As a nation we are, and for a long time have been in denial, when it comes to all things capitalist. The Harvard battle is not about political leanings - it is about trying to reconcile the dissonance that is now an embedded feature of our country's culture. Maybe the Harvard issues will wake us up to that reality. (But I doubt it).
Sunday, November 09, 2003
Chantin' in the Mansion
Originally posted: Friday, March 07, 2003
Posted 7:41 AM by tom
When I mentioned to my brother that there was a meditation/chant tonight and I was thinking about attending, he informed me that he was aware of a recent surge of meditation activity around town - people getting together and group meditating - all in the name of peace. I wasn't aware of any purpose attached to this evening's chant session. I just thought it would be nice to engage in a group meditation, as I hadn't done that for awhile.
As we discussed the notion of "chanting for peace", it occurred to me that this was yet another misguided Boomer-driven attempt to co-opt something spiritual and turn it to their own purposes. In this case, the purpose could be described as avoiding confronting the real issues that are at the root of the conflict we find ourselves in.
Consider the quote, attributed to Karl Marx: "In the birth of every system are sown the seeds of its own destruction." (Details, source, corrections gratefully accepted).
Then consider American society, our Constitution, and capitalism. One of the great things about the American experiment thus far has been the apparent adaptability of our system of rules, as defined in the Constitution. This system continues to operate after 200 years, and three major economic ages: Agrarian, Industrial, and now the Post-Industrial/Information age. What insight, what wisdom the Founders had, in defining such a malleable system. It is truly a marvel. The timing of it was spectacular.
Just before the Industrial Age was about to see it's first dawn, a group of renegades from Europe staked a claim to a vast landmass of then-boundless resources, interior water routes for transportation, and generally agreeable weather. The set of rules they established encouraged free thinking, the right to profit from one's ideas and labors, and the free flow of goods. And the Industrial Age was just getting underway. Capitalism was born, and what a healthy newborn it was. Consumerism had to evolve, too. How else to provide the massive pull on production, to drive an economy fueled by our bounty of natural resources, ingenuity and labor?
And therein lies the rub. Consumerism coupled with the Western tradition of focusing on other rather than self creates the juggernaut that may yet prove to be our undoing. And no amount of meditation is likely to change it - especially if we're "meditating for peace" ("other," not "self"). Which is why the title of this rant is "Chantin' in the Mansion." We want both - but it's the mansion that will be our undoing. Champagne socialism is still the goal, the ideal that many Americans aspire to. How can families earning $100k a year (with both parents working) possibly be considered among the "working poor," when that amount of household income is probably among the top one percent in the world?
The truth is, that meditating for peace won't work. It may help people feel better about living the excessive lifestyles we have come to expect in this country, but it won't assuage our detractors' animosity toward us. And backing off on consumerist behavior, on the desire for more, is not an option the majority of Americans will be willing to embrace.
So in the end I think we are in a precarious position. Twenty years ago it would have been hard to fathom how Marx could have been right about the seeds of destruction - "not this time" would have been the likely retort. I wish I could feel more optimistic about the future, but I don't. I think he was right. And it ain't gonna be pretty.
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