Orwell

A friend of mine mentioned recently he'd been reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia. This made me think it was high time I read it again. It's an extremely good read, if somewhat depressing. It's the same old story (which also lead to the demise of the Weimar Republic) - the left is too busy fighting amongst itself to worry about the fascists.

Quote of the day

It's the only course of action that might give some purpose to our superfluous and selfish existence - that we give people a picture of their fate. And we can do that only if we love humanity. Actually it's stupid to love humanity, nothing but a heap of egoism (and we are a part of it too). But I love it anyway. I love its meanness, its banality, its dullness, its cheap contentment, and its oh-so-very-rare heroism.

- Max Beckmann, A confession

Some nice, if somewhat 'spiritually satanic', bedtime reading

A nice essay on nihilism by some nice Catholics.

Alternate history madness

Who knew?

More Godard and more reading

Off to Two or three things I know about her this evening. It could well be arduous, but I want to see it anyway - and not just for the link with Belle de jour.

I read Art incorporated by Julian Stallabrass over the weekend. (The link's to a short essay by him with broadly the same argument.) I didn't entirely agree with all of it, though a lot of it's spot on. It's well worth a read.

Check out the new PLF logo

It's a doozy. Also take note of the last sentence.

Avant-garde

I haven't been doing much work as in actually applying pigment to ground (apart from this and a couple of oils), but I have been doing a bit of reading, which I count as work as well: Concepts of modern art (the first half's excellent), Rites of spring: the Great War and the birth of the modern age (very good), Foucault's pendulum (pretentious but fun), a book by Elmore Leonard, and a book on George Grosz. Now I'm making my way through Theories of modern art and a book on Beckmann. Need some more fiction.

Something else to look at

Thermostat, the gallery in Palmerston North, has a new website. I've been in a couple of group shows there. It's well worth a visit.

Some stuff to look at

John Heartfield, art manifestos, Dada tarot, esoteric texts, Crowley tarot on-line reading, artist books, a history of photomontage, Kurt Schwitters' Ursonate, Burroughs on myspace, electronic mind control.

Quote of the day

As to the opium, I have no objection to see a picture of that, though I would rather see the original: you may paint it, if you choose; but I apprize you, that no 'little' receptacle would, even in 1816, answer my purpose ... No: you may as well paint the real receptacle, which was not of gold, but of glass, and as much like a wine-decanter as possible. Into this you may put a quart [1.136 litres] of ruby-coloured laudanum: that, and a book of German metaphysics placed by its side, will sufficiently attest my being in the neighbourhood... (Emphasis in original.)

- Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an opium-eater

This and that

Yeah, yeah, so I've been a bit slack.

Victor's show is a purler. Luckily the opening and aftermath were a lot more restrained than Couper's, so I wasn't sick as a dog the next day. That came later in the week.

Rose and I went to Kenneth Anger's Magick Lantern cycle at the Film Archive on Friday and Saturday nights, but unfortunately I don't remember much of the second night (which were all the classic ones, damnit) cos I'd got a little too out of it beforehand.

We went to see Godard's The outsiders at the Film Society last night. It was fairly silly, but extrremely good fun. My favourite bits were the opening credits, the fact that Arthur Rimbaud's pretend death scene is nowhere near as hammed up as his real death scene, and of course the classics: the dance (where the music stops while Godard tells us what the characters are thinking - Odile wonders whether the boys notice the way her breasts move, and Franz thinks about 'everything and nothing' - but we can still hear the stamping of their feet and the clicking of their fingers), the alleged minute's silence (which is apparently 35 seconds and during which all the incidental sound disappears), and their race through the Louvre (where they beat the previous record by two seconds).

I am, once again, completely broke. I've been wondering why this doesn't concern me, and I think it's cos I've hit the right balance. I value time much more than money. It helps not owning a house or a car, so I don't need to worry about interest rates or petrol prices, or any of that crap. Cos I do earn enough for my needs, however, I don't need to worry about exhibiting or selling art work. This means I need only please myself and not dealers or punters. Freedom is a wonderful thing.

One down

Mr Couper's opening last night was excellent, though I'm a little worse for wear today. I blame Mr Sweetman and the shots he bought. Get to do it all again in about four hours' time.

Steve's posted an account of the inaugural PLF meeting held on Saturday evening. Might have to go check out how the treatment's going.

I haven't been doing any proper work recently, but I have been doing quite a bit of reading. I'm about half way through the complete Sherlock Holmes.