In the summer of 2010 I was back in New York City, after a year in Charlotte, North Carolina which, as painful as it felt at the time had led to lots of self-discovery. I am talking about the self-discovery of the cheesy type, the happy-ending in the movie screen that makes us cry of happiness, yet is shameful to mention out loud to those who were born simply knowing how to manage. A hot wind blew through the city that summer, blew until it seemed that before August broke, all the sand of Coney Island would be in New York, would have drifted over the Manhattan sky-scrapers and the rooftops in Brooklyn, and stopped only when it hit the terraces in Queens. There was not much to do during the day, a summer like that: there was the day when I signed the papers that would commit me to a teaching job in a Manhattan private high school, and the evening I returned the forms that committed me to a graduate program in Philosophy for at least two years. There was the local YMCA with an indoor swimming pool that I used every morning; which had a small waiting room where artificial blue rain fell behind the glass. The rain interested me a good deal, but I could not spend the summer watching it, and so we went, my friend C and I, to the movies.
The MOMA was free after six pm every Friday. So we went three and four evenings a month, sat on the dusty red chairs in the darkened theatre, and it was there, that summer of 2010 while the hot wind blew outside, and so late in life, that I first saw John Wayne in a “Western Movies” screening. Saw the walk, heard the voice. Heard him tell the girl in a picture called War of the Wildcats that he would build her a house, “at the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow”. The only other Western I ever saw before this, was one with Asian cowboys riding somewhere in a snowy land, maybe in Nebraska. But there was no John Wayne in that film, and I was still in Charlotte at the time, I was still watching how the rain fell and complaining about humidity.
As it happened I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and I now wonder if having watched Westerns as a child would have possibly made me this woman. And although the men I have known have had virtues, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow. “Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is still the line I wait to hear.”
I write this tonight not out of self-revelation or fictional nostalgia, but rather because I went out again to the MOMA yesterday evening and I heard John Wayne saying “hello there!” from his horse as he later rode into the horizon of the golden screen. And I knew then that I was attracted to his character because there was no cheesy-self discovery in any of his films. He was a man, and he simply knew how to manage. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” simple as that. And deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain still falls, there is that line which stayed with me even after John Wayne rode away into the horizon of the golden screen: “ A man’s gotta do…”
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I am sitting at a bar in Brooklyn with my friend B. We are playing “War” with a deck of cards and placing our bets on the girl sitting by herself next to us. I say that five men will approach her tonight; he insists that three men will approach her at the most.
In less than one hour I win at “War,” he wins the bet.
We finish our beers and run out of games, but don’t want to head back home yet.
"Tell me things I won't mind forgetting," he suggests. "Make it useless stuff or skip it."
I begin. I tell him that whenever I drink Canada Dry Ginger Ale I like to pretend I am in Canada.
I tell him that catching fireflies and trapping them in a jar is a fictional childhood memory that I made up after hearing other people talk about their childhood memories, always involving the act of catching fireflies, because I did not want to feel left out.
I tell him that I secretly thought “Inception” was a stupid movie and that to start with, not everybody believes in the unconscious.
I tell him that I've been trying to look more tanned lately. Mostly because the diversity committee at my job is sending people to Spain this year, and I really want to go to Spain, but I have to look like a woman of color to attend the conference.
I tell him that last Saturday I met an anthropology graduate student who is trying to buy a funeral home to start her own business, and that this idea was inspired by her job working at the mortuary.
I tell him that my niece has recently discovered death, and that he sneaks into his mother’s room every night at three am. That he has a small glow in the dark watch attached to his small wrist. That every night, he gets close to his mother’s bed to make sure she is still breathing and then goes back to his room. I tell him that watching over the living must be a tough job for such a young child.
I tell him that all of this is useless stuff that he will forget by tomorrow. So I win the game. By now my friend looks confused, but he buys me another beer.
What he doesn’t know is that I always win this game. I am an expert at ignoring the big picture, the abstract concepts. But I never skip on the useless details, on those contingent things that only seem to matter to me, the closest things.
Maybe this is why I am so bad at philosophy, and so good at telling people things, useless things. This is why I am still a stranger to the world of concepts.
In less than one hour I win at “War,” he wins the bet.
We finish our beers and run out of games, but don’t want to head back home yet.
"Tell me things I won't mind forgetting," he suggests. "Make it useless stuff or skip it."
I begin. I tell him that whenever I drink Canada Dry Ginger Ale I like to pretend I am in Canada.
I tell him that catching fireflies and trapping them in a jar is a fictional childhood memory that I made up after hearing other people talk about their childhood memories, always involving the act of catching fireflies, because I did not want to feel left out.
I tell him that I secretly thought “Inception” was a stupid movie and that to start with, not everybody believes in the unconscious.
I tell him that I've been trying to look more tanned lately. Mostly because the diversity committee at my job is sending people to Spain this year, and I really want to go to Spain, but I have to look like a woman of color to attend the conference.
I tell him that last Saturday I met an anthropology graduate student who is trying to buy a funeral home to start her own business, and that this idea was inspired by her job working at the mortuary.
I tell him that my niece has recently discovered death, and that he sneaks into his mother’s room every night at three am. That he has a small glow in the dark watch attached to his small wrist. That every night, he gets close to his mother’s bed to make sure she is still breathing and then goes back to his room. I tell him that watching over the living must be a tough job for such a young child.
I tell him that all of this is useless stuff that he will forget by tomorrow. So I win the game. By now my friend looks confused, but he buys me another beer.
What he doesn’t know is that I always win this game. I am an expert at ignoring the big picture, the abstract concepts. But I never skip on the useless details, on those contingent things that only seem to matter to me, the closest things.
Maybe this is why I am so bad at philosophy, and so good at telling people things, useless things. This is why I am still a stranger to the world of concepts.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Learning to love all over again and from the beginning is like going to Coney Island at night to ride the Cyclops roller coaster. It is changing your mind at the last minute and letting your friends get on it without you. It is watching their smiling faces disappear into the night the higher up they travel as you stay safely on the ground waving at them. It is realizing that you are not ready for it. It is buying a tacky post card at a hot dog stand instead. The postcard says "I rode the Cyclops at Coney Island." It is keeping that postcard with you just in case you ever have to tell somebody that in fact, there was a time when you did ride the Cyclops and that you have evidence. That you would rather stand and wave tonight, but that there was that time.
Learning to love again is like making a list with your best friend. The list includes old lovers who used sentences such as "your eyes are like pools of water" in their letters to you. It is realizing that this is the common denominator in most bad relationships: That they never even cared to look at your eyes long enough to figure out that in fact, the color of your eyes is not the color of a pool with water. Realizing that it must have been dark, or that something must have gone completely wrong, and that this is also a common denominator of failed relationships. that it must have been too dark. that something must have gone wrong.
Learning to love again is like making a list with your best friend. The list includes old lovers who used sentences such as "your eyes are like pools of water" in their letters to you. It is realizing that this is the common denominator in most bad relationships: That they never even cared to look at your eyes long enough to figure out that in fact, the color of your eyes is not the color of a pool with water. Realizing that it must have been dark, or that something must have gone completely wrong, and that this is also a common denominator of failed relationships. that it must have been too dark. that something must have gone wrong.
Monday, July 19, 2010
It's Friday evening and I am sitting inside a small movie theater at the MOMA with my good old friend Hannah who is up here for a visit, and my new friend Carlie who suggested we attend this event. We just finished watching a Brazilian film, and are waiting for the Q and A session with the director to begin. The members of the audience look like New Yorkers, but most importantly, they act like New Yorkers.
So here is an entry were I write about other people.
1) This is what is funny about New Yorkers; while most of us are used to sitting through dumb questions at Q and A’s, their tolerance level is extremely low. One would assume it would be high, given that whoever has ridden a crowded subway in summer with somebody’s armpit stuck to their face must know about tolerance. But this does not apply to cultural events, and here, pretentiousness might just beat tolerance. So when a member of the audience asks a pretty obvious, self-explanatory question, the other majority begin to get irritated. While in other states people are most likely to keep their intolerance to themselves, or slightly roll their eyes; in this city people are somewhat more explicit about their feelings towards a dumb question.
As soon as the first irrelevant, self-explanatory question was addressed to the director of the film, I could hear a crowd of complaints coming from other members of the audience:
"Duh!"
"This is obvious!"
"This question is so irrelevant"
And I swear I even heard an:
"Ass-Hole" uttered by somebody in the crowd.
This is good to know, given that now I will probably never ask a question to the film director if I am at the MOMA again.
2) The other typical New Yorker thing that I noticed is that every time you attend a cultural event in this city, there is always that one dude who goes to an event by himself and takes out his journal. Before the film/performance/reading is about to start he will sit in a reflexive mood, sometimes barefooted, and write on it.
Journal guy always looks contemplative, lost in his own thoughts, and yet there is that slight feeling that he might just be in need of attention, might just want others to think of him as a serious, reflexive, contemplative guy who goes to the MOMA by himself. So although he would not admit this to us, journal guy is lonely and just wants to make friends here in New York.
Sometimes I think that if I didn't blog and if I didn’t know any people up here, I would probably have to carry a journal around with me whenever I attend a film/reading/performance. Which makes me think that if I didn't blog, I would also probably be journal guy...
So here is an entry were I write about other people.
1) This is what is funny about New Yorkers; while most of us are used to sitting through dumb questions at Q and A’s, their tolerance level is extremely low. One would assume it would be high, given that whoever has ridden a crowded subway in summer with somebody’s armpit stuck to their face must know about tolerance. But this does not apply to cultural events, and here, pretentiousness might just beat tolerance. So when a member of the audience asks a pretty obvious, self-explanatory question, the other majority begin to get irritated. While in other states people are most likely to keep their intolerance to themselves, or slightly roll their eyes; in this city people are somewhat more explicit about their feelings towards a dumb question.
As soon as the first irrelevant, self-explanatory question was addressed to the director of the film, I could hear a crowd of complaints coming from other members of the audience:
"Duh!"
"This is obvious!"
"This question is so irrelevant"
And I swear I even heard an:
"Ass-Hole" uttered by somebody in the crowd.
This is good to know, given that now I will probably never ask a question to the film director if I am at the MOMA again.
2) The other typical New Yorker thing that I noticed is that every time you attend a cultural event in this city, there is always that one dude who goes to an event by himself and takes out his journal. Before the film/performance/reading is about to start he will sit in a reflexive mood, sometimes barefooted, and write on it.
Journal guy always looks contemplative, lost in his own thoughts, and yet there is that slight feeling that he might just be in need of attention, might just want others to think of him as a serious, reflexive, contemplative guy who goes to the MOMA by himself. So although he would not admit this to us, journal guy is lonely and just wants to make friends here in New York.
Sometimes I think that if I didn't blog and if I didn’t know any people up here, I would probably have to carry a journal around with me whenever I attend a film/reading/performance. Which makes me think that if I didn't blog, I would also probably be journal guy...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
On other terms. Tonight after Ballet class I decided to go practice a variation by myself in the first floor studio. I accidentally left my clothes on the other, second floor studio, and everybody left, and they locked it. So when I realized what had happened, I also realized that I was wearing a leotard and ballet slippers, and that this would be my outfit for the night. I caught up with a Ballet friend who was still at the door, and she let me borrow her flip flops, but did not have an extra T-shirt and lived too far away for me to go get one at her place. So I rode the seven train back home in a blue leotard and ballet tights, and flip flops. I think this is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to me in New York so far.
But I'm sure there will be plenty of other stories in the coming months...
But I'm sure there will be plenty of other stories in the coming months...
Monday, July 12, 2010
So I still Think I can Dance
This to say that I take Ballet classes in a small studio in Manhattan, five times a week in the evenings. I am not a good dancer, and I am not being humble. Whoever has gone out with me and got dragged to a dance floor, knows how terrible of a dancer I am. But I attend these classes because Ballet makes me happy. I don’t know how to explain it but it just does. So Ballet is meaningful to me, despite the fact that I'm a bad dancer and will never get extremely far in this discipline. To top it off, I recently read an article on the New York Times Magazine about how my generation has been raised by parents and teachers who have always motivated us to "follow our dreams" and do "what makes us happy." Yet somehow there has to be something missing in this model where human motivation is guided by self-interest. That is, I have plenty of friends who are paying the consequences of naively "following their dreams" in their early twenties, and now being in tons of debt, unemployed, undecided about their career etc. This was also the point of the New York Times article.
So speaking about following my dreams, last week, I found out that a girl in my Ballet group is also a composer at Julliard. She showed her work to my Russian teacher, and he decided to organize a performance. This means that my group will get to dance on stage in the fall, with a real orchestra playing. This also presented me with an unexpected philosophical issue which I formulated with this question: Is taking Ballet because it makes me happy a good justification for making this a priority, even if I'm not (objectively) a good dancer?
Here I am making a decision between committing to something I am not good at, but that I love doing ( Ballet) and committing to something else which I am potentially good at (philosophy) but am not very positive about doing. For example, to be in the performance, I will probably have to take less graduate school classes because rehearsals take time. So I will spend less time in my philosophy department, and more time with my Ballet group. This might bring consequences in the long run (for example, it will take me longer to graduate).
I read Susan Wolf's Tanner Lectures last night, about meaningfulness in life. In a very simple manner, her proposal is that meaning arises from "loving objects worthy of love, and engaging with them in a positive way." The category of value she defends involves objective and subjective elements, inextricably linked. So Wolf's view is an interesting combination of egoism, or self-interested motivation models (do what makes you happy as long as it is meaningful to you. Find your inner passion. Go for it.) and the idea that we should also be involved in something larger than ourselves (which might not always be what we want to do.)
Drawing from her proposal, can I justify my decision by arguing that I am also involved in something larger than myself? Hopefully yes.
Most of the people in my group are in their twenties and thirties, some of them used to be professional dancers too. We are all facebook friends by now. We exchange youtube videos of Ballet variations through facebook, and on Saturday evenings, after Ballet class, we go out Salsa Dancing at Lincoln Center. Next weekend I am attending a film screening with another Ballet friend, of the movie "Only when I Dance." I've never been in better shape in my life. I am surrounded by artists and eccentric people. But fundamentally, we have a common goal to work on. So not only do I get the personal satisfaction of being happy when I dance, I also get to be around a community of other people who dance because this makes them happy and for the common goal of rehearsing a good performance.
So here we have a community: One of the few things that actually helps us humans be involved in something we love, that can also be larger than ourselves once we set a common goal.
Does my defense work? Probably not. Am I still seriously thinking about being in the Dance performance this Fall and skipping on a philosophy course? Hell yeah.
(Note on the side: Whatever dumb thing I decide to do to "follow my passions" is still justified nowadays because I have a job. So another argument would be: as long as I keep my job, I can do whatever makes me happy. But this sounds like an easy way out.)
So speaking about following my dreams, last week, I found out that a girl in my Ballet group is also a composer at Julliard. She showed her work to my Russian teacher, and he decided to organize a performance. This means that my group will get to dance on stage in the fall, with a real orchestra playing. This also presented me with an unexpected philosophical issue which I formulated with this question: Is taking Ballet because it makes me happy a good justification for making this a priority, even if I'm not (objectively) a good dancer?
Here I am making a decision between committing to something I am not good at, but that I love doing ( Ballet) and committing to something else which I am potentially good at (philosophy) but am not very positive about doing. For example, to be in the performance, I will probably have to take less graduate school classes because rehearsals take time. So I will spend less time in my philosophy department, and more time with my Ballet group. This might bring consequences in the long run (for example, it will take me longer to graduate).
I read Susan Wolf's Tanner Lectures last night, about meaningfulness in life. In a very simple manner, her proposal is that meaning arises from "loving objects worthy of love, and engaging with them in a positive way." The category of value she defends involves objective and subjective elements, inextricably linked. So Wolf's view is an interesting combination of egoism, or self-interested motivation models (do what makes you happy as long as it is meaningful to you. Find your inner passion. Go for it.) and the idea that we should also be involved in something larger than ourselves (which might not always be what we want to do.)
Drawing from her proposal, can I justify my decision by arguing that I am also involved in something larger than myself? Hopefully yes.
Most of the people in my group are in their twenties and thirties, some of them used to be professional dancers too. We are all facebook friends by now. We exchange youtube videos of Ballet variations through facebook, and on Saturday evenings, after Ballet class, we go out Salsa Dancing at Lincoln Center. Next weekend I am attending a film screening with another Ballet friend, of the movie "Only when I Dance." I've never been in better shape in my life. I am surrounded by artists and eccentric people. But fundamentally, we have a common goal to work on. So not only do I get the personal satisfaction of being happy when I dance, I also get to be around a community of other people who dance because this makes them happy and for the common goal of rehearsing a good performance.
So here we have a community: One of the few things that actually helps us humans be involved in something we love, that can also be larger than ourselves once we set a common goal.
Does my defense work? Probably not. Am I still seriously thinking about being in the Dance performance this Fall and skipping on a philosophy course? Hell yeah.
(Note on the side: Whatever dumb thing I decide to do to "follow my passions" is still justified nowadays because I have a job. So another argument would be: as long as I keep my job, I can do whatever makes me happy. But this sounds like an easy way out.)
Friday, July 9, 2010
In Between Days
Today the Rabbi explained my teaching schedule to me, which differs in winter because there is less sunlight, which differs every week because of prayer times for the students, and then he suddenly got busy with the phone. So I had time to look around his office, at his dusty existentialism books, at his framed paintings of Spanish ruins. On his desk there was a pile of photocopies of the Tanner Lectures about “Meaning in Life and why it Matters” which he must be teaching to his students. And I am pretty obvious when I snoop around, because he noticed I was trying to read his photocopies backwards from where I was sitting, and invited me to take a copy.
So I left that office today with the Tanner Lectures in my hand, rushing to catch the seven back to Queens. And maybe it was the day, or the fact that I had not slept enough the nigh before, but I felt sort of jealous that he could afford to live in such an intense, wonderful spiritual world to the point where reality, where things such as having no AC in the seven train, having an unemployed dad, having to count your pennies, having to die, become the mere icing on the cake to something else, to something larger and apparently much better.
And then, I am not sure why but all of this talk about "why meaning matters" just reminded me of acts of love. There is this piece in a biography by Tennessee Williams. The essay is titled “The Man in the Overstuffed Chair,” and at one point in the story his therapist tells him that to forgive the world, he first has to forgive others.
I remember reading this essay one night not too long ago, and thinking about the way life used to feel like. Realizing that I could forgive the world now, and I could forgive others. But that forgiving myself was always the pending, the most difficult act, the one nobody warns you about. It was the act that brought the most resistance. And that I, pretty much, was on my own with that one.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
“I can’t believe it,” my mother said from the other end of the phone, “I simply can’t believe it.”
First you got into graduate school, and now this. Who would have thought a year ago that I would be hearing news like this!”
“I know” I explained from my end of the phone. “I’ll get to go shopping for new clothes and everything! And I will wear skirts over the waist more often.” I don’t think I remember the last time I walked inside a store that was not called “Goodwill” and bought brand new clothes that actually fit me. But it was time.
“It’s a big thing, my mother commented, it will change your whole life.”
“I know” I responded, “but the clock was ticking and it was time I did something about it.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” my mother asked.
“It is too late to turn back now” I laughed. “I took the urine test this morning and everything says we are good to go.”
“I can’t wait to tell you sisters, they will be so proud of you!” my mother exclaimed.
“I won’t tell my friends yet, until I’m sure it sticks. But you can tell the rest of the family” I answered. “They are going to be so happy to find out that you are going to have” _ my mother paused and I could hear a sigh from her end of the phone, “a job!”
A real job.
I couldn’t believe it either. After I passed the first interview, the teaching assessment, and the drug screening, I got an offer to be a Spanish teacher at a Jewish private school in Manhattan today. I could hardly pass the offer up. My bosses seemed like very interesting people, my seventh and eight graders looked pretty harmless, and when I found out that I was going to get a stable salary I impatiently waited for the Rabbi to finish his sentence so that we could shake hands and get this over with.
In all honesty, this is a relief.
I have been working an extended series of odd jobs these past years (babysitting, cat sitting, unofficial backup dancer at Snug Harbor and other bars, emergency room Spanish interpreter, Spanish substitute teacher, house cleaner, graduate assistant, etc.) that paid my rent while I was a full-time college student and spared me enough left over money to, maybe, afford a box of frozen pizza.
The last steady job I held was as an insurance sales person selling policies on the phone from inside a cubicle. The other steady job I held was as a coffee shop supervisor. I worked for a lady from Venezuela who cursed loudly in Spanish and would come to work even if she were dying with swine flu. She, thus, expected us employees to be as obsessed with the job as she was.
My new job requires I teach Spanish to two classes of seventh graders, and two classes of eight graders. It will allow me to be creative with my lesson plans. It will allow me to pay my college debt. It will let me be the center of attention every once in a while. It will let me speak basic Spanish with students, and not have to worry about speaking in English.
Cheers to that.
First you got into graduate school, and now this. Who would have thought a year ago that I would be hearing news like this!”
“I know” I explained from my end of the phone. “I’ll get to go shopping for new clothes and everything! And I will wear skirts over the waist more often.” I don’t think I remember the last time I walked inside a store that was not called “Goodwill” and bought brand new clothes that actually fit me. But it was time.
“It’s a big thing, my mother commented, it will change your whole life.”
“I know” I responded, “but the clock was ticking and it was time I did something about it.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” my mother asked.
“It is too late to turn back now” I laughed. “I took the urine test this morning and everything says we are good to go.”
“I can’t wait to tell you sisters, they will be so proud of you!” my mother exclaimed.
“I won’t tell my friends yet, until I’m sure it sticks. But you can tell the rest of the family” I answered. “They are going to be so happy to find out that you are going to have” _ my mother paused and I could hear a sigh from her end of the phone, “a job!”
A real job.
I couldn’t believe it either. After I passed the first interview, the teaching assessment, and the drug screening, I got an offer to be a Spanish teacher at a Jewish private school in Manhattan today. I could hardly pass the offer up. My bosses seemed like very interesting people, my seventh and eight graders looked pretty harmless, and when I found out that I was going to get a stable salary I impatiently waited for the Rabbi to finish his sentence so that we could shake hands and get this over with.
In all honesty, this is a relief.
I have been working an extended series of odd jobs these past years (babysitting, cat sitting, unofficial backup dancer at Snug Harbor and other bars, emergency room Spanish interpreter, Spanish substitute teacher, house cleaner, graduate assistant, etc.) that paid my rent while I was a full-time college student and spared me enough left over money to, maybe, afford a box of frozen pizza.
The last steady job I held was as an insurance sales person selling policies on the phone from inside a cubicle. The other steady job I held was as a coffee shop supervisor. I worked for a lady from Venezuela who cursed loudly in Spanish and would come to work even if she were dying with swine flu. She, thus, expected us employees to be as obsessed with the job as she was.
My new job requires I teach Spanish to two classes of seventh graders, and two classes of eight graders. It will allow me to be creative with my lesson plans. It will allow me to pay my college debt. It will let me be the center of attention every once in a while. It will let me speak basic Spanish with students, and not have to worry about speaking in English.
Cheers to that.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Art and Boredom?
I am part of a group of graduate students organizing the annual Philosophy and Art Conference, at Stonybrook University. We meet once a week on Sundays at a classmate’s apartment to discuss themes and ideas for this conference. Honestly, I decided to volunteer with this project because I recently moved to New York and needed to be part of whatever is similar to a community up here. This means that I primarily attended the meeting to hang out with other students, go through my classmates' bookshelves, and eat free snacks. Half of the time I couldn’t get past the students’ dense, GRE word loaded, vocabulary to understand what is it that they were arguing for or against. But this, like many other things about New York, is also growing on me. And I have to say that I began getting a little more interested in actually helping out, when I discovered that one of the possible keynote speakers of the conference would be Arthur Danto.
So yes, this will be another long entry about aesthetics. Sorry.
Last year, the theme of the conference was “Collectivity.” This year each person defended their favorite theme, we all took a vote, and “Boredom” was the winner.
At first I thought this was a terrible theme for a conference. Especially given that most philosophers already get laughed at for embodying boredom pretty well. But I went along with it and hoped for the best. I am now beginning to understand why boredom is a problem in aesthetics, and why it might not be such a bad conference theme after all.
I’ve recently found in Daniel H’s blog an entry about the art world that made me think about this issue. Daniel is a graduate student at CUNY who has his doubts about contemporary art, and who can blame him? In his words:
“While wandering through a modern art exhibit, I sometimes experience a pair of conflicting thoughts: the suspicion that what I am looking at is totally meaningless junk, together with the nagging doubt that since all sorts of perfectly intelligent people have devoted their attention to it and conspired to place it in such a venerated viewing location, there must be something to it.”
So what is going on here? Two issues: The first is that the artworks he alludes to are probably contemporary, and thus, do not have beauty as a primary property or as a property at all. The second is that these artworks appear to have no meaning, and are thus classified as useless “junk.” I think Daniel’s view is very common and worth looking at. So I first want to say something about beauty, then something about usefulness, and then I will connect these two concepts to uselessness which appears to be one of the causes of boredom. Hopefully this will allow me to clarify the stigma that contemporary art faces.
1) As long as an artwork is beautiful, or has beauty as a property, it can be useless and still have popular approval. Talk to anyone who has gone museum touring around Europe and you will find out that they can handle standing in front of useless art for hours as long as it is beautiful, or has this property.
But I have a better example from literature. I am reading “The Gift of Asher Lev.” A novel by Chaim Potok, about a young boy’s Orthodox Jewish experience in New York. I picked this novel because I’m trying to understand more about orthodox Jewish culture, now that I will be teaching in a Jewish school. But I also think that this novel presents us with an interesting tension between beauty and uselessness. Through the story, the main character struggles between his love for art, and the views of his father, who claims from his religious faith that any form of art not related to Judaism is useless, and a waste of time. In the novel, Asher admires the beauty of artworks despite their “uselessness.” He begins to go to art museums where he studies paintings. He becomes very interested in the paintings, especially the ones of the crucifixions. He starts copying the paintings of the crucifixions and nudes, and this gets him in trouble with his father. Besides the religious conflict going on here, I think Potok’s character believes that beauty has value in itself, thus, he cannot see the “uselessness” his father perceives. This is also an example of how beauty appears to be a necessary condition for useless art. That is, as long as an artwork is beautiful, or has this property, the majority of audiences can accept the fact that it is useless.
2) As long as an artwork has a purpose (political, ethical, affective etc.) that provides meaning or usefulness, it can afford to be non-beautiful, or recede from having beauty as a property, and still have the approval of the general audience.
In Potok’s novel, for example, Asher’s father makes usefulness a priority and, coming from a religious perspective, claims that only art that divulges salvation is useful. And from a militant front plenty of political artists have claimed that either art should be political or else a mere decoration: a useless ornament. Interestingly, a lot of religious and political art centers on suffering, themes which are not in themselves beautiful but might have some ethical, religious, or political purpose. So here, purpose, meaning, and usefulness are necessary conditions for non-beautiful artworks to be approved by the general audiences.
Now, the problem rises when we encounter works like the ones Daniel mentions. Apparently, these items do not have beauty as a property, and when we cannot for sure decide if the work has any sort of political, ethical, or affective purpose, these get classified as “boring,” “junk,” “useless,” “bullshit” etc. So the problem lies with the encounter of works that have no beauty, and apparently, no purpose either. Thus, they are useless. This is also how uselessness gets connected to boredom, the main theme of our conference.
I wonder how Potok’s character would have reacted to the contemporary art world given that his defense of art is primarily a defense of beauty.
And here lies the stigma of non-beautiful, non-useful art.
How many audiences that enter the Guggenheim daily have uttered these statements? “What is the point in this?” or, “This is bullshit,” or further “My little sister could have done that.” And lastly, “I am bored in this museum; can we go have a sandwich now?”
(I have to admit that I am guilty of this last statement.)
So boredom appears to be a problem within aesthetics because, as I wanted to show, it is directly connected to the stigma of uselessness that non-beautiful, contemporary art has to face. That is, if the work cannot prove its purpose, or its meaning, then it is sadly categorized by the audience as another “junk” artifact.
And yet, hopefully for artists and for philosophers of art, artworks escape most logic because although they appear useless, they are indirectly useful. I recently read an interview with Christian Boltanski, one of my favorite French sculptors, who explains this humbly and better than I can. Here, Boltanski defends the purpose of useless, non-beautiful art. I am translating one of his responses from Spanish:
“I am a professor in the School of Fine Arts, in Paris. What I tend to argue is that if I like teaching there, it is precisely because the School of Fine Arts is the most useless place in Paris. It has no purpose whatsoever. And in this world, almost everything is useful you see. People study to be businessmen, doctors…to be a doctor you must learn something precise. And in the school of Fine Arts I have a few students, and we talk about things that are completely useless. We talk about the color of the sky, about a spot on the floor…And talking about useless things is so strange, and naturally, in the end it is the useless things that are the most useful. I think that museums are full of useless things. In art schools one does nothing more than talk about useless things, but then the only places that contain this paradox are churches for example. Churches are useless and it is precisely this inutility that makes them useful, because there is no direct objective to them. For example, in a restaurant one eats; but in a church one waits, one reflects, but one does not have a delimited objective. I think Art is so wonderful because it is not directly useful. This is not completely true. But partly, this is true.”
Moral of the story: Be careful when you stand in front of a piece of useless junk in a museum, it might be the most useful, wonderful piece of junk you will ever encounter.
So yes, this will be another long entry about aesthetics. Sorry.
Last year, the theme of the conference was “Collectivity.” This year each person defended their favorite theme, we all took a vote, and “Boredom” was the winner.
At first I thought this was a terrible theme for a conference. Especially given that most philosophers already get laughed at for embodying boredom pretty well. But I went along with it and hoped for the best. I am now beginning to understand why boredom is a problem in aesthetics, and why it might not be such a bad conference theme after all.
I’ve recently found in Daniel H’s blog an entry about the art world that made me think about this issue. Daniel is a graduate student at CUNY who has his doubts about contemporary art, and who can blame him? In his words:
“While wandering through a modern art exhibit, I sometimes experience a pair of conflicting thoughts: the suspicion that what I am looking at is totally meaningless junk, together with the nagging doubt that since all sorts of perfectly intelligent people have devoted their attention to it and conspired to place it in such a venerated viewing location, there must be something to it.”
So what is going on here? Two issues: The first is that the artworks he alludes to are probably contemporary, and thus, do not have beauty as a primary property or as a property at all. The second is that these artworks appear to have no meaning, and are thus classified as useless “junk.” I think Daniel’s view is very common and worth looking at. So I first want to say something about beauty, then something about usefulness, and then I will connect these two concepts to uselessness which appears to be one of the causes of boredom. Hopefully this will allow me to clarify the stigma that contemporary art faces.
1) As long as an artwork is beautiful, or has beauty as a property, it can be useless and still have popular approval. Talk to anyone who has gone museum touring around Europe and you will find out that they can handle standing in front of useless art for hours as long as it is beautiful, or has this property.
But I have a better example from literature. I am reading “The Gift of Asher Lev.” A novel by Chaim Potok, about a young boy’s Orthodox Jewish experience in New York. I picked this novel because I’m trying to understand more about orthodox Jewish culture, now that I will be teaching in a Jewish school. But I also think that this novel presents us with an interesting tension between beauty and uselessness. Through the story, the main character struggles between his love for art, and the views of his father, who claims from his religious faith that any form of art not related to Judaism is useless, and a waste of time. In the novel, Asher admires the beauty of artworks despite their “uselessness.” He begins to go to art museums where he studies paintings. He becomes very interested in the paintings, especially the ones of the crucifixions. He starts copying the paintings of the crucifixions and nudes, and this gets him in trouble with his father. Besides the religious conflict going on here, I think Potok’s character believes that beauty has value in itself, thus, he cannot see the “uselessness” his father perceives. This is also an example of how beauty appears to be a necessary condition for useless art. That is, as long as an artwork is beautiful, or has this property, the majority of audiences can accept the fact that it is useless.
2) As long as an artwork has a purpose (political, ethical, affective etc.) that provides meaning or usefulness, it can afford to be non-beautiful, or recede from having beauty as a property, and still have the approval of the general audience.
In Potok’s novel, for example, Asher’s father makes usefulness a priority and, coming from a religious perspective, claims that only art that divulges salvation is useful. And from a militant front plenty of political artists have claimed that either art should be political or else a mere decoration: a useless ornament. Interestingly, a lot of religious and political art centers on suffering, themes which are not in themselves beautiful but might have some ethical, religious, or political purpose. So here, purpose, meaning, and usefulness are necessary conditions for non-beautiful artworks to be approved by the general audiences.
Now, the problem rises when we encounter works like the ones Daniel mentions. Apparently, these items do not have beauty as a property, and when we cannot for sure decide if the work has any sort of political, ethical, or affective purpose, these get classified as “boring,” “junk,” “useless,” “bullshit” etc. So the problem lies with the encounter of works that have no beauty, and apparently, no purpose either. Thus, they are useless. This is also how uselessness gets connected to boredom, the main theme of our conference.
I wonder how Potok’s character would have reacted to the contemporary art world given that his defense of art is primarily a defense of beauty.
And here lies the stigma of non-beautiful, non-useful art.
How many audiences that enter the Guggenheim daily have uttered these statements? “What is the point in this?” or, “This is bullshit,” or further “My little sister could have done that.” And lastly, “I am bored in this museum; can we go have a sandwich now?”
(I have to admit that I am guilty of this last statement.)
So boredom appears to be a problem within aesthetics because, as I wanted to show, it is directly connected to the stigma of uselessness that non-beautiful, contemporary art has to face. That is, if the work cannot prove its purpose, or its meaning, then it is sadly categorized by the audience as another “junk” artifact.
And yet, hopefully for artists and for philosophers of art, artworks escape most logic because although they appear useless, they are indirectly useful. I recently read an interview with Christian Boltanski, one of my favorite French sculptors, who explains this humbly and better than I can. Here, Boltanski defends the purpose of useless, non-beautiful art. I am translating one of his responses from Spanish:
“I am a professor in the School of Fine Arts, in Paris. What I tend to argue is that if I like teaching there, it is precisely because the School of Fine Arts is the most useless place in Paris. It has no purpose whatsoever. And in this world, almost everything is useful you see. People study to be businessmen, doctors…to be a doctor you must learn something precise. And in the school of Fine Arts I have a few students, and we talk about things that are completely useless. We talk about the color of the sky, about a spot on the floor…And talking about useless things is so strange, and naturally, in the end it is the useless things that are the most useful. I think that museums are full of useless things. In art schools one does nothing more than talk about useless things, but then the only places that contain this paradox are churches for example. Churches are useless and it is precisely this inutility that makes them useful, because there is no direct objective to them. For example, in a restaurant one eats; but in a church one waits, one reflects, but one does not have a delimited objective. I think Art is so wonderful because it is not directly useful. This is not completely true. But partly, this is true.”
Moral of the story: Be careful when you stand in front of a piece of useless junk in a museum, it might be the most useful, wonderful piece of junk you will ever encounter.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Today after swimming, I stopped by my neighborhood's Argentine market to follow the first part of the Argentina-Germany game. Last time I was there, with dad, Argentina was playing against Mexico. The place was so crowded that a drunken Mexican girl who was cheering for the wrong team had to sit on my lap to avoid getting thrown out for standing in front of the TV.
This time I decided to make my way into a corner and remain squished between other bodies, feeling people's elbows, just to join the crowd of viewers.
And all I wanted to say is that I had forgotten how much Argentinian's can cuss.
As soon as we started loosing to Germany, people got really emotional: Vamos Boludo! move las pelotas.
Another one: "Dale boludo corre!"
Vamos, vamos, reboludo!
reboludo!
Vamos CARAJO!
This time I decided to make my way into a corner and remain squished between other bodies, feeling people's elbows, just to join the crowd of viewers.
And all I wanted to say is that I had forgotten how much Argentinian's can cuss.
As soon as we started loosing to Germany, people got really emotional: Vamos Boludo! move las pelotas.
Another one: "Dale boludo corre!"
Vamos, vamos, reboludo!
reboludo!
Vamos CARAJO!
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