h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Dmitri! Thanks for this, again one short enough for me to watch. The puns are definitely a case of getting cr*p past the radar! But a chance for me to dust off my French again.

Glad you enjoyed that one.

I'm preparing a concert for later in the month. Those should be short enough for you, too.

Looking forward to it!

I don't know what it is with artists. Now I appreciate Marcel Duchamp and what he's done, and Dada, and the kick in the pants it gave the art world, and the subsequent developments ... not all of them but certainly many of them. How many 'movements' have there been and each lasts a while and then a new movement starts in rebellion against the old movement, pronouncing the old way as moribund ... every artist it seems gets tired with art and the way it's been done and tries to do something new and revolutionary. Well that's fine, but also ... the 'old' ways are not necessarily defunct. As I see it, within every movement or style or method there is still an almost infinite potential for what could be done. In music ... every genre you can think of can still be enriched with new stuff, new songs, new performances, you cannot exhaust any of them, within the limits that defines it there is an almost infinity of different things that can be done. So why not for visual art? I am not a 'high' artist and don't care for world fame, but I know that I will never become 'tired' of art or of doing things a certain way ... there are always other ways of doing things, but within the confines of one way there is no chance of running out of ideas or subjects. If I live forever I will still not get bored. I'll paint and sketch every single species of living thing ... in different mediums, different poses, different backgrounds, different combinations ... every extinct species ... I'll imagine my own species, of the possible future, of 'alternative' parallel Earths, and of alien planets ... I'll invent completely fantastical creatures ... I'll illustrate my own fantasy stories ... all of this within the confines of 'realistic' art. I'll explore aesthetics from every angle using all of these subjects and more. Sure, I'll try abstract art as well, every kind of it that I can think of, if I have enough time to try them all. I cannot imagine ever growing tired or running out of ideas. Maybe I'll never revolutionize the art world, but I don't care to, I'm not into this to shake up or shock the world, I just love doing it!

Amen.

I can think of several kinds of visual art I love - Dutch masters, surrealists, Pre-Raphaelites - and they're all different.

I've often thought what you just said: that the possibilities those people opened up haven't been completely explored. Same with music.

I think we'll need eternity to get at all the wonderful ways to understand those things.

Nah, it doesn't have to be the 'next new thing'...