a quote from Paco Underhill (interviewed by Tim Griffin, Artforum 4/08)

Paco Underhill: (...) You have to think in terms of the conscience of our culture, which is historically what the leading edge of art has been about: Where are people asking questions about what's going right and what's going wrong in the world in which we live? That role, I think, has been taken over by realms other than the art world as the world has gotten smaller--whether by the Natural Resources Defense Council or Greenpeace. So many issues that challenge us as a species now are not about politics, but rather morality. The idea that someone can be an avid ecologist and a fundamentalist Christian isn't a disconnect. Someone can be a member of both the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. And as the edges of our culture have become murkier, the role of the avant-garde has become, in a way, less necessary.
Tim Griffin: Hence, art's situation as a kind of social site above anything else?
Paco Underhill: Correct.

from Moby-Dick

The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause!--one word!--whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!--stay thy hand!--but one single word with thee! Nay--the shuttle flies--the figures float from forth the loom; the freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving he is deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby have villanies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.

mckinley and whitney

From their respective websites.

2011

I absolutely have to believe in something. I can tell you what I won't believe in...Snookie.

david shrigley

i first saw david shrigley's work in chelsea -- i forget which gallery -- last time i was in NYC. definitely one of the best shows i saw. the work has a great hickish quality about it, kind of creepy and funny, sometimes because it can be so anticlimactic. the wit seems to come from a darkly absurd place. anyway, i love it.

SF window

winnie

just finished a long and extremely intricate account by winston churchill of the time between the world wars. the theme of the story is that WWII was one of the easiest wars to prevent, but repeatedly poor decisions by the governments of europe based on wishful thinking enabled germany to rearm. churchill tried for years to convince the british government of its continued oversight and the growing dangers that resulted. eventually it was too late. but he never stopped trying, even though most of his words went against the mood of the times. he was a nagging political presence, but his words were brought to truth almost like prophecy.

strange for me to think about people like this. people who clearly had some major historical role in their destiny. or at least it seems this way in retrospect. i used to think that people like this mattered more than other people. it's an awful thing to admit, but thankfully i don't feel this way anymore.

my father told his story over thanksgiving about how he's made a living throughout his life, his decision to preempt the draft and enroll in the military, his determination to have his own business and why, etc. i don't know how someone does this. obviously, necessity forces one to figure it out.