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

>> Plus, I was well stoned. <blush? <<

Well, Edward, as Bobby Dylan said, "everybody must get stoned".

And since you mentioned in this thread-about-Art that you have recently became a fan of his music and poetry, you'll like this!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080609/ennew_afp/entertainmentbritainusmusicdylanart_080609163338

A goodle search of 'Bob Dylan Artwork Gallery' produces some conflicts of dates and locations. It seems the latest is in London June 14th but there has already been one in Germany and one in New York and all claim to be the 'first' showing of his art.

One of the US networks prime time news did a feature a few days ago with comments such as "he shouldn't give up his day job" and "if it weren't 'Bob Dylan' who'd even look at it". I won't add to the negativity except to suggest he has obviously been influenced by Milton Glazer's album cover art. Which is to say that psuedo folk art is a natural next step for a psuedo folksinger.


"...and there are no seeds
inside the Gates of Eden..."



~jwf~

PS: the spelling of psuedo is a deliberate red herring

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/node/408

>>
Isn't that how you get a A* these days? Frankly, I'm surprised they still study poetry..

Reactonary fool.
'Ooh! Standards are falling! Education is being dumbed down'. Nonsense. Today's young are learning - and understanding - things beyond our comprehension.

Think about it: Do you *really* think that all the technology that's aropund is being created by middle-aged people with a pedanctic knowledge of spelling and grammar?

If so...more fool you. The Small Mammals are taking over.

Dissing di yout': The British Disease!

>>Isn't that how you get a A* these days? Frankly, I'm surprised they still study poetry...

And out of interest, RF...what are your own credentials in poetry? Go on...give us a few lines of Heaney. And no Googling!

Scientists can also create Art...

...except that art created by women is called 'handicraft'. Tracy E's embroidery and the like.

Two married mathematicians. One said that hyperbolic geometry couldn't easily be represented. The other said 'Nonsense! I can crochet it!' Hyperbolic geometry has applications in understanding the growth of marine life forms. And hence we have:
http://www.theiff.org/reef/index.html

Representational enough for ya?

He might even give us a few lines of his own stuff......

Oh, Christ no!

Aren´t smart these people from Aberdeen?

Click on 9th June piece of news about the Spanish cook Ferrán Adriá.

"the Salvador Dalí of the kitchen"


http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mediareleases/

I will update the list of human activities that have two facet: one for art sake (Arts gratia artis) and the other to cover *basic human needs:

Architecture
Cooking
Science( have you seen the geometry of Alhambra? or the Nazarí enamel?)
Communication ( ordinary speech/literature...)
Sex (calming down the fisiological lust/ inspirational creative moments of eroticism)
...


* Sometimes, we really need Art.

Yesterday I found in the obituary section of the newspaper El País a comment on John F. Moffitt. I have no idea of the existence of this man.
The comment-almost elegy, was written by a Profesor of History of Art in a university of Madrid.

Do you know him? I think he deserves a mention.
I will translate a few comments from that obituary note:

His alter-ego, H.M.S. Phake-Potter, wrote works as hilarious and delirant as Post-Modernist Deconstruction for Dummies.

Moffitt wrote about visual culture, Picturing Extraterrestrials;

an edition of his own about the Emblems of Alciato (no idea what is that, I'll google) It has to do with iconic-verbal thought;

the vinculations of Duchamp and Beuvys with the Alquimist tradition; etc.

Most of his work is about the Spanish art. His are reference books for many generations of northamerican students.

The profesor ends the note with these words:
"With his death, it disappears a great researcher, an inconditional admirer of any Spanish manifestation and a formidable cultural animator. Rests in peace the old friend: although the inclement time has finished with the person, nothing will be able to do against his irrepetible personage"

I want to read any of his books. I'm in love with him from yesterday

I must say Ed your convo with Orcus comes across as you thinking there is some objective relevance/property to all art, and that everyone can 'get' it. Now you will probably protest that this isn;t the case, but if Orcus (or others) just don't see what is so wonderful about then that is fine and just as valid as your getting whatever it is you get from it. Art is subjective which means it is just as possible for people to get nothing from it as to get a fundamental revalation about .

And neither is 'right' or 'wrong' since there is no objectivity here.

>>Now you will probably protest that this isn;t the case, but if Orcus (or others) just don't see what is so wonderful about then that is fine and just as valid as your getting whatever it is you get from it.

That's true, and I stand corrected.

*But*...maybe Orcus will have to answer this for ne...has s/he made the effort?

I just find it difficult to comprehebd that anyone could be unreceptive to all art post-1900- since it is not, to my mind, much different to the art of the previous Millenia back to Lascaux. It's all just Art. Some of it I like. Others...not so much. But I don't go by period or subject matter.

>> Orcus... has s/he made the effort? <<

If 'twere she it would be Orca.

~jwf~

>> Post-Modernist Deconstruction for Dummies <<


I wonder if that comes with a free hammer.


~jwf~

>> And out of interest, RF...what are your own credentials in poetry? <<

My "credentials" as you put it, are irrelevant. My surprise was at poetry still being taught at GCSE (is it?), and the relative ease of getting an A* in GCSEs.

RF

In the interest of furthering this fractured discussion of 'modern art' let me say a few words about poetry which has not been as obviously successful as the visual arts in redefining itself in 'modern' terms and times.

The aforementioned eecummings (who seems to have now taken possession of the soul of Rnumber and is currently ranting about rules being for 'other' fools) was indeed a brave pioneer in reformatting poetry for the 2oth century.

But along with the loss of the deeply engrained culture of print literacy in the rise of radio, TV and other electronic media we have to recognise how poetry has given itself rebirth in music (where it began).

Not that I'm saying that all (or even much) pop music is good poetry or even poetic, but the form is there and the impulse is as strong as it ever was in the heady days of Victoria when everyone felt compelled to versify and only a select few made star status.


~jwf~

>My surprise was at poetry still being taught at GCSE (is it?),<

Well I've no idea either. But I don't quite see how you get an 'A' level in English literature without it.

You can push cynicism too far, RF.

>> You can push cynicism too far, RF <<

Someone should've told Gordon Brown that yesterday.

I'd like to think that poetry is part of an "A" level (although I was talking about GCSEs, not "A" level) English Literature. But I'm not sure. When I did "O" level Eng. Lit. (which shows my age immediately! ) we did poetry, including an obligatory Chaucer question as well as an obligatory Shakespeare. My cynicism comes in part from something that was brought to my attention recently: HI's niece, aged 12, has been "studying" French at school for the last year, but is so far unable to speak a single word of French. Cynical? I'm more *worried*, I think.

RF

>> My surprise was at poetry still being taught at GCSE (is it?)

Yes. It is.

You're not one of those fools who believes the media notion that education is being dumbed down and schools are churning out uneducated children, are you?

>>Someone should've told Gordon Brown that yesterday.

Some crises that did nor require the repeal of Magna Carta:

The Black Death
The English Civil War
The Glorious Revolution
The Invasion of Charles Stuart
The Irish Revolution
WWII
The PIRA bombing campaign.

Why now?

Fear not. Helena Kennedy will make mincemeat of it in The Lords.

>*But*...maybe Orcus will have to answer this for ne...has s/he made the effort?<


Maybe when the level of patronising sanctimony has died down a little.