Opiate of the Cognoscenti

It’s amazing how many highly intelligent people I’ve encountered who themselves are a slave to some grand, sorry dogma. I understand the reasoning behind this basic tendency: a dogma comes prepackaged, with all the major questions already covered in some way when you find it – and if the belief system is any good at all, with relatively self-consistent answers. This fulfills a practical need, as it limits the mental workload of the dogmatic person: it tightens the field of view, and thereby makes it easier to consider only the issues the individual actually wants to think about. A dogma also provides an automatic “us and them,” and consequently a built-in community – and for those who might have had a hard time making friends anyway, this is especially attractive. However, while these are both admittedly crucial traits, I believe the most addictive quality of a dogmatic system for an artist is, fundamentally, that it provides a way to articulate how “I” am better than “you.” It is a simple solution for a deep insecurity. This is one reason why it’s often easy to find that some of the most senselessly dogmatic are among the most lost people you will ever meet: it’s a security blanket, and the more lost the artist is when they find the system, the more it will tend to entrench in their life and work, and the greater a mental crutch it will become. The dogma fills up the empty person like water between rocks – a secular, justifiable god. The cognoscenti are fond of remarking negatively on the “simpler person’s” need for archaic faiths. Ironically, I have so often witnessed these same people argue desperately for the most threadbare, hand-me-down artistic dogmas – people who would claim to be on the absolute cutting edge of artist creation, free and wandering the perimeter.

The core and perennial problem with stylistic dogmatism in art is that, by definition, the degree to which it reigns in a given art object is the degree to which that object is no longer a work of art – at least not to the same degree, not anywhere near the same caliber, and however you slice it, certainly not what thinking people mean when they talk about the avant-garde. One of the principal costs of a dogma is that in exchange for its safety and somewhat complete answers, the artist must sacrifice his own decision-making power. Given this, the degree to which an artist's decisions are guided by an external, prefabricated doctrine is the degree to which the artist chooses to submit to the notion that nothing new is possible in this art object. And so wherever dogma is the guiding force, real experimentation cannot permitted, and therefore nothing truly new can happen. And with so few resources available, how can we have a new music worth supporting that isn’t actually new? Only in the areas from which dogmatism has been exorcised can truly honest art be possible.

It’s not a fresh idea: without breaking rules, the groundbreaking stuff just doesn’t happen. Thomas Kinkade is not the same thing as a work of Christo and Jean-Claude, no matter how well crafted the justifications and explanations surrounding the former may be. The really unfortunate thing is the reality that ensues when the dogmatic reign without recognizing their own dogmatisms. The dogmatic have traditionally been able to find a comfortable home in the academy, as it provides little real artistic challenge beyond a general game of semantics. Unfortunately, the lockstep artist seems by my little experience to represent the vast majority of those actively working in what they would call new music. The reason is, again, that it’s an easy and often accepted way of being, and more so, that the alternative is much more difficult: to figure it all out for yourself from scratch, to find the answers yourself, to dig out all the questions one by one with your own tired, dirty little hands. Without a doubt, this is a much, much more difficult thing to do. Truthfully, it’s not even in the same category of being. But then, it is also the only way to actually become an artist.

“And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not…A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it. So, dear Sir, I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take the destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted.” — Rilke

Anarchy

"The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love, and the voice of art."

— Federico García Lorca

From a Running List

Bill Waterson, Italo Calvino, Francis Bacon, Antonio Gaudi, Joseph Campbell, Federico Garcia Lorca, Klaus Kinski, Stanley Kubrick, Györgi Ligeti, Rainer Maria Rilke, Andy Goldsworthy, Virginia Woolfe, Gérard Grisey, Wes Anderson, Jose Luis Borges, Louis Andriessen, F.F. Coppola, J.M. Basquiat, Jane’s Addiction, Henry David Thoreau, John Zorn, Chris Van Allsberg, Maynard James Keenan, Giancinto Scelsi, Gabriel Garcia Marqeuz, Led Zeppelin, Marc Chagall, Ayn Rand, Conlon Nancarrow, L.V. Beethoven, J.S. Bach, M. Buonarroti, M. Mazzoni, Daniel Liebeskind, Sylvia Plath, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Helmut Lachenmann, Terry Gilliam

Virginia

In 1929, Virginia Woolfe wrote that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." When she penned this, Ms. Woolf was resisting a system that tried to tell her what she could be, and she was offering a clear, pragmatic goal for others in her position. The particular fascism that she faced was patriarchal. However, her message speaks to anyone honestly engaged in the rare act of trying to be an individual - anyone attempting some true, good work in a largely disinterested world.

The need and vindication of the true artist arises internally. In the end, no one else can tell the artist what work she must do, nor when it is done. Woolf naturally understands this and so does not to speak to any artistic objective: she knows that if the reader is hungry enough for her advice, this question will already be within her hands. No, Ms. Woolf’s dicta is simply a clear, logistical message from an artist who wanted to help us acquire and maintain a freedom that she herself found so precious and necessary. Independence is the only path to artistic integrity.

RIP AVW 032841

Insight

"A lack of seriousness has led to all sorts of wonderful insights."

- Kurt Vonnegut

Systemic Flaw

Even perfect human systems still function at the mercy of the slowest common human denominator, the base limit of the laziest of those minds involved. In a society where both conscious, critical thought and a general sense of personal responsibility seem progressively, exponentially less common, we find ourselves with the paradox of both evolving machines and a regressing population. We waste a great deal of time tinkering with and comparing already perfect, good, or at least adequate systems – though ideally they would all be perfect, naturally – when the preponderance of the problem is in fact the presence and prowess of the individuals at work within and working the system(s). Human participation unfortunately renders even ideal systems imperfect, and we continue to suffer the same mistakes until we are able to cultivate a society interested in trying to be awake. Instead, we are regularly confronted with the evidence of a people on autopilot.

Dog parks often have a double-gated entrance, to insure against pet exit. Today, an oblivious family managed to leave both gates open long enough for one of our dogs to make it out onto the sidewalk, an escape that for a variety of reasons should never have come close to taking place. Given that this gate led almost directly onto the street, the chance for the situation to have become something more serious was high. Everything ended well, fortunately. However, it did leave me considering the kind of cage it is to see how things could be better and to simply not understand the simplest actions of those around you.

The double gate is a good, solid, simple system. Only a human could be stupid enough to screw it up.

The Honest Work

I do think that in the end it is and always will be the honesty of the work that matters most, that reaches through with its impossible syringe to communicate in some way so far past the point of our understanding, or any need for our understanding.

I wish, I wish, I wish, though it will never happen here because Californians are, for the most part, sissies

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - One Nevada gubernatorial hopeful sees a speedy fix to Nevada's budget crisis. Nonpartisan candidate Eugene "Gino" DiSimone believes people would pay for the privilege to drive up to 90 mph on designated highways—and fill the state's depleted coffers.

DiSimone calls his idea the "free limit plan." He estimates the plan would bring in $1 billion a year.

First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection. Then vehicle information would be loaded into a database, and motorists would purchase a transponder.

After setting up an account, anyone in a hurry could dial in, and for $25 charged to a credit card, be free to speed for 24 hours.

The Nevada Highway Patrol isn't keen on the idea, saying it would lead to increased injuries and traffic deaths.

- From:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9I1D6T01&show_article=1
"Nevada candidate touts speedy fix to budget crisis"
Sep 4 07:17 PM US/Eastern

The Next City

Lost Angeles. Second morning in the new place. The boys already know the routine. This apartment and waking up in the cool morning ocean city air reminds me of Santa Cruz and Grandma.

The neighbor’s dogs have received the unfortunate sobriquet Cerberus, for their insane unprovoked and relentless barking. The neighbors who owe the dogs seem very nice, just oblivious - and obliviousness is, after all, the predominant state of mankind. So it goes living with humans, and we need to keep this in mind when we go out into the wilderness and try to communicate with them.

On the opposite side of the lot stands a tall, beautiful bamboo wall. I’m pretty sure there are chickens living on the other side of this wall, as I occasionally hear them caballing. I wonder sometimes what they are planning. Thankfully, I have yet to hear a rooster.

Moving was cathartic; it always is - forcing tangible value decisions over the physical materials in one's life. It’s always good for me, cleansing, as it’s amazing how much useless garbage I collect so quickly. And especially odd considering how I imagine myself to be so vigilant in this respect. Anyway, whatever the cases, it feels good to be here, for so many reasons without reason to name.

The Redhead is utterly amazing; unbelievably, I love her more every day. She is this incredible blend of pioneer and modern woman, and for so many reasons and in so many ways I’d be utterly lost without her. We’re both so tired of moving now - we feel this deep, long, and long awaited exhaustion - and are hoping so much that this will be the last stop for a long time. We’re ready to settle in and get to work.

The first night in bed in the dark we drank the opening shots of 15-year-old Dalwhinnie Robb so awesomely gifted for my 33rd. The following afternoon we spent more than an hour at the dog park, in the heat and shade and joy. Also, I have become a gardener, raising as I now am five small herb plant with which I intend to make Stone Soup. By the way, this entry is belated for reasons of internet availability.

A good sign: The previous tenants, a young Canadian couple, left 2 Natural Lights in the fridge for us. Yes, good people do exist, even in LA.