Concerning the Spiritual in Art

 

Improvisation 27, Garden of Love ll (1912)

Kandinsky's l911 treatise "Concerning the Spiritual in Art," is a classic essay on abstraction. The famous painter draws an analogy with music which by turn sets the stage for a discussion of abstraction in painting and other arts. Prosody can be a linear and seemingly realistic literary form such as in the case of  "Tintern Abbey," but modernist poets like John Ashberry use language in ways that can be difficult to parse. The experience is tantamount to not being able to navigate one's way around a canvas. If the medium is the message, then, in this case, don't mistake the messenger. Going back to plasticity, can it be said that Jackson Pollock's "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)" is the real realism, reflecting neuronal movement of axons and dendrites between synapses to regulate the flow of serotonin while so-called realism is, in effect, a construct, a delusion constructed by the mind, as a way of regulating bodies in space?

Therapy

 

Have you noticed that within the demographic of educated affluent liberals that everyone speaks like a therapist? They don't even need training or accreditation. At the very least, they will ask what their fellow discussant feels about this or that turn of events, instead of shooting off at the mouth, which is what they may have done in their past lives. Accompanying the restraint is a meaningful gaze. They may not really be listening or even care, but the simple posture of holding back on thoughts confers an undeniable power. Let the other person babble on in the face of silence, like the nurse in Persona and you will come out on top or bottom, depending on your penchant, both literally and metaphorically.

Sick

Popeye (King Features)

When you were a kid, you stayed home from school when you were sick. School was boring and it was more fun to watch cartoons. On the other hand, you had to deal with your symptoms, whether fever, coughing and sneezing or even diarrhea. Such vacations from the normal order of things have almost no appeal for adults, who like to reassure themselves of their longevity and the degree to which they're survivors who can brave the elements. Some people even have a need to demonstrate their ability endure under the most adverse of conditions. The weak shall inherit the earth is not their mantra, until something happens.

The Whopper

There's a new Whopper in town. Go to the Met or anywhere on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, have a salad in the cafeteria, and you'll get Legionaire's Disease and cyclosporiasis--which is not something you want to contract in your peloton. Everyone says  Legionaire's is not contagious, plus you don't have to get eat raw vegetables, which are where the cyclosporiasis bacteria reside. Legionaire's is found is microscopic droplets and lettuce can be sautéed, but let's take a best case scenario. You are in a space capsule, a la Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), or on the Mars mission that NASA has been touting. You eat the lettuce, since there is no time to sauté it. Which way will the powerful diarrhea propel you, towards the red planet or earth?

Denial

signing of Versailles Treaty  (June 28, 1919)

One (and there are many) ways  to explain the phenomenon of Trump is denial. Climate change is a hoax. Even as the rivers overflow and the forests burn away, the easy thing is to say it isn’t happening, to wish it away. That's why gaslighting Trump's favorite rhetorical device. The same thing happened in Weimar Germany. In that case the villain was the Versailles treaty with its onerous sanctions. Hitler's Willing Executioners is the title of the Goldhagen book. The Germans particularly the lumpenproletariat, who paid the price economically,  were on board with a messianic unifying message which blamed the Jews. You don’t have a Trump or for that matter a Jim Jones, unless you  have followers. 

Algae

c

cyanobacteria on Lake Erie

There has been a tidal wave of humanity engulfing the East End of Long Island a new form algae that is flowing along the highways. It has been preceded by flocks of sickly Canadian geese. You know something is wrong when you see a goose or bird standing motionlessly along the shoulder of a road, but as another kind of roadkill are the visitors with their horrendously blank expressions, faces that are airport runways in a vanishing perspective. Flocks of expensive cars drown out the tweeting of birds. Who are these people? What do they want? You might think it's pleasure, but the expressions aremean spirited and filled with exasperation at having to wait in line. "Where have all the flowers gone?"--sang Pete Seeger.

Poltergeist

"Hamlet and His Father's Ghost" (William Blake, 1806)

Ghosting is a pregnant notion. Of course people have rejected each other by refusing to answer calls, or even walking right past them without saying hello, but with the explosion of social media and now AI, the possibilities are relentless. Do you want to create damage or merely dodge bullets? The best way to accomplish either is to refuse to acknowledge their existence. It's definitely a great way to inflict a wound. If you just want to be, bothered you get a twofer. After all, the kind of person you want to stay away from is generally someone who is annoying--and even though you don't really have an axe to grind, it's fun to give them a dose of their own medicine, ie annoyance.