This rather enjoyable little essay/art review by Colm TóibÃÂn begins, "From an early age, I have missed the point of things. I noticed this first when the entire class at school seemed to understand that Animal Farm was about something other than animals. I alone sat there believing otherwise. I simply couldn't see who or what the book was about if not about farm animals. I had enjoyed it for that." What's great about it is I think it speaks to a secret worry we all have about not seeing something that seems so clear to everyone else, that nagging feeling that we're not understanding the whole story. Or at least it's a secret worry of mine. I bet you guys get everything.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
52
Twilight is also not about vampires.
!!
I love this idea and can't wait to read the whole essay. My problem is I never understand the whole story until it's too late, except that everyone else thinks I understand it, so they treat me like some kind of savant, when I'm actually more of an idiot-savant. Teachers were this way.
Also, I never "learn my lesson" until I'm vomiting into a truck stop toilet or buying a Golden Retriever with my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.
Wait. You're gay?
Yep. But I'm a bad, non-fabulous gay.
Man, seconded. I have no idea why everyone thinks I'm a brainiac. Although sometimes I'll say random things, like in an art gallery or watching performance art, and my Ivy League buddies will just freak at the genius of it. What in the hell? But bottom line, with my technical education, I don't understand 90% of Anything, especially The Awl. ESPECIALLY THE POETRY. WHO IS PHILLIP LARKIN AND WHEN DID HE WRITE ALL THOSE POEMS??!! I am inadequate.
Ha. Yo. BoHan: Phillip Larkin can be thoroughly enjoyed via the following:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Speaking of the Larkin poem and missing the point.
I did not get the David Byrne link and will freely admit to that.
Joe Leiberman does not understand this concern.
I'm not sure if not getting something is worse than reading too much into things. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to know the context/history/artist autobiography of every painting/book/album/movie I ever experience, and could just enjoy it more at face value, as Toibin does.
I'm never really worried about missing the point about most Medieval religious paintings; unless it's a painting of St. Sebastian.
http://ageofbeauty.blogspot.com/2005/12/st-sebastian-d-287-gay-saint.html
You're in luck! http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/barthes06.htm
Reminds me of my first experience seeing a Cy Twombly.
I see what you're doing here. Very clever, Mr. Balk, very clever.
wait. I don't get it. 'splain, si?
You know what I'd like for Christmas? A Balk's Secret Worry-A-Day Calendar.
February 16: "Am I a disappointment to my father?"
May 29: "When other people see green are they seeing what I consider orange?"
August 4: "Is there something in my nose?"
December 15: "What if Jolie never stops this shit?"
September 7: "When did I eat corn?"
(I will, no joke, buy a drink for the person who gets that reference.)
Carol Channing! "I don't remember eating corn?"
This? http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/01/tina-fey-twitters-about-the-difficulty-of-digesting-corn/
No...that's not it. Damn it!
Nope to both of you. Sorry!!
"Senseless" with Marlon Wayans - DON'T ASK WHY I SAW IT!!!
I have it on good authority it was Carol Channing so curious to see who is credited with this...
Oh dear God, you people do not know me at all. It's a Balk reference. Strictly Balkan. I've spent the past few years studying everything about him and regurgitating it online at every opportunity in an attempt to drive him slowly crazy.
I believe it's working.
No, I do know you and knew it had to be a Balk reference, but I didn't guess that because I....balked. Mayhaps it was a long ago post from his tumblr....
June 1: "Would I be happier as a gay man and would I still enjoy blowjobs?"
October 2: "Can men get scoliosis of the spine?"
December 25: "If I start crying now, will I be able to stop when guests arrive?"
March 2: "Does my mom favor my brother because he's more generous than me?"
July 14: "What are those French bastards gonna get up to today?"
September 19: "Does these pants make my ass look fat?"
November 7: "If I were a bear and went to sleep now, would I ever wake-up?"
April 18: "Do I fear Lady Gaga because I covet what she represents?"
March 5: "If someone takes my picture does that mean they own my soul?"
Reminds me of my interpretation of that garbage Benjamin Button flick, which is still INCOMPLETE, because honestly...what the fack was the point of that 3 hours of drivel and not-as-great-as-everyone-seems-to-think CGI? I mean, I know it was allegorical of something American history blah blah Hurricane Katrina yada yada World War 2, glub glub(at least it HAD to have been, or why any of it?)
Anyhoos my point is, good art hidden meaning does not make. At least, surely it can't be important to GET a message if the message is stupid and not at all obvious. And if it is obvious AND stupid, that's even worse.
Duh, it was Brad Pitt playing Forrest Gump minus the box of chocolates.
YES. my take exactly.
Well true. But the whole clock intro and Katrina juxatopozz...there was an IMPLIED more. Which is always always just a bad idea. Because it's a story about a man aging backwards that isn't even in a rational or accurate manner (Obviously, he should be LOSING memories as he youngifies, not gaining them, then only losing them at his youngest which is the reverse. You can make the case for Alzheimer's, but c'mon. My Grandad is 90 but still full of memories. Senility is neither guaranteed nor specific to life's experiences)
So if America agin backwards? Was hurricane katrina like the death of the old lady? DON'T JUXTAPOSE THINGS WILLY NILLY. I hate that. Or do it, but background please. Not foreground. The whole intro about the clock. Fuck.
"IS america AGING backwards." I'm not smart.
Dear Brad Pitt: just be pretty, or funny. Watching you try to convey emotional depth is like watching Frank Gehry try to make a cube (you see what I did there).
Oh dear. Now that you've reminded me of the existence of that fucking movie, I have to step outside my office to throw a brief temper tantrum.
Did ANYONE like that movie?!
Yes. Yes, we do.
Why should I care if people don't convey what I want to hear?
Baudrillard's dead? When will it stop?
This was a good call!
Years ago my then-boyfriend and I had to read Diving Into The Wreck for class. Neither of us had ANY idea that poem was not about exploring a shipwreck. That was a good relationship.
I felt the same way about Muppet Babies
I kept waiting for the soldiers to have gay sex in Beau Travail. I'm still waiting. I may have missed the point.
I was watching The Wrestler a week or so ago and was so pissed at the ending. It was then that I decided I hate non literal endings! I'm totally fine if it makes me a simpleton but don't leave me these half assed I have to guess the ending of shit art films. I paid for a conclusion dammit. I'm going to watch that yip yip yip video from yesterday again. I get that stuff...
I got scabies once. Does that count?
When I was a kid, my mother had the book by Judy Chicago describing in great detail her installation The Dinner Party. For those unfamiliar, The Dinner Party is basically giant vulvas on plates, meant to symbolize various famous women throughout history. See examples here.
Did I know that they were giant, stylized vulvas? No, no I did not. I thought they were butterflies. Yes, butterflies. To be honest, I didn’t think about the designs much beyond “pretty,†although I read through the book a lot, mostly because it contained a lot of womens history missing or glossed over in school. But the whole time, “butterflies.†My tender young mind was clearly immune to sexual imagery.
Flash forward many years, during which I became neither a lesbian, a lepdopterist, not a lesbidopterist, and I return home to find a large, framed, color poster of The Dinner Party hanging in my mother’s dining room (She had finally gotten the chance to see it in person). I stared at it and sloooowly the thought formed … hey … wait a minute … those aren’t BUTTERFLIES!
It was quite the epiphany. How could I have missed that? They are clearly giant vulvas on plates! I immediately went over to the bookshelf and grabbed the book. Did I just repress the part where Chicago says “Oh, by the way, these are all giant vulvas on plates� Turns out, Chicago herself describes it as a butterfly motif in the book, even discussing how she chose the imagery of butterflies. So I wasn’t completely clueless, although apparently very gullible.
Flash forward a few years after that, to when my mother and I see the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibit at MOCA. On display are some of Chicago’s original sketches for The Dinner Party. In them, she describes the designs as “cunts.†At which point, I was like WTF! Why did you lie to me Judy Chicago? You always knew they weren’t butterflies! Did the patriarchy make you lie and call them butterflies instead of giant vulvas on plates? Goddamn artists and their metaphorical imagery.
Anyhow, I’m not sure what the point of my overly long comment is, except I’m suspicious that “trees†in the above photo are meant to symbolize penises.
Trees? I just a see a forest.
Ur mom sounds kewl
I recently saw The Dinner Party in person for the first time, and was completely nonplussed... I had majored in art history so I knew the backstory, but still found myself walking around the triangle thinking "Ok, vagina on a plate....another vagina on a plate...big fucking whoop." I've since spoken with some of my former profs about it, and they say it's a generational thing - for older women it was groundbreaking, for people my age (I'm 37), it's just a bunch of vaginas on plates.
But your butterfly tale makes me feel a thousand times better about the field trip of third graders that started filing into the exhibit as I was leaving... Hopefully they thught they were pretty butterflies, too.
Almost all the art at the WACK! exhibit was terrible but interesting by way of capturing a moment in history. Even though I cursed her lies, I appreciated Chicago artistically a little bit more. The sketches showed a definite talent that seemed to get lost in the more gimmicky aspect of the work.
Speaking of kids, part of the WACK exhibit was feminist zines from the 70s. As I admired (for art historical reasons) a mag featuring a large, nude, erect penis a small child came wandering over to look. I really wasn't sure what to do. Luckily she was distracted by video installation before I had to decide.
I'm not touching this.
I see what you did there.