Leaving February 25
Last night before bed, I watched this wonderful animated adaptation of the short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury
The title and motif of the story, comes from Sara Teasdale's 1920 poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains", which had a post-apocalyptic setting inspired by World War I
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
I woke up around 1:30. I could have stayed in bed longer but I decided to get up, and go get coffee, even though I had decided earlier in the week that I should probably quit drinking caffiene altogether. I came back home and read some of Mitch Horowitz's "Daydream Believer" and then I went through all the laundry, (to get ready to take to the laundromat tomorrow... or sometime next week), while listening to Christopher Lee read "Frankenstein". After that I made a couple sandwiches and finished up the post for March 1 and the "on this day" part of March 2. I watched/listened to a new piece by Douglass Rushkoff on his Team Human YouTube Channel. I learned the notes for the melodic hook in Steely Dan's "Any Major Dude". I aim to play it backwards and see if that is worth using as a riff for a new Cruel Math song. I read a little more of "Daydream Believer" and took a nap. After I woke up, I had a smoke and then a rootbeer float. Now I'm all cozy in bed, and I started reading some more of J.F. Martel's "Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice"
and I just wanted to share this one passage that struck me... a bit of confirmation bias like Horowitz was talking about in his book. (? Maybe) All I know is I've always sort of felt this to be true in my relationship to art. and I've often told people as such.
Homer opens The Iliad and The Odyssey with the same words: "Sing Goddess." The author-centric conception of art is a relatively recent development. For animistic societies, the artist was a conduit, not the origin of the work of art. The work's content and even it's form were thought to come from another plane, one that the artist accessed under the guidance of a spirit guide, muse, or daimon. It was the artist and not art who deserved to be called the medium...
This reminds me of my own underlying disdain for "artist statements", but perhaps it's more my lacking ability to articulate and attach meaning to my work. (?) Sigh. I'm gonna get back to reading. Maybe watch an episode of Orson Welles' Great Mysteries,
or finish "The Yellow Wallpaper" movie. Perhaps both. We'll see. Bye for now.
The title and motif of the story, comes from Sara Teasdale's 1920 poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains", which had a post-apocalyptic setting inspired by World War I
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
I woke up around 1:30. I could have stayed in bed longer but I decided to get up, and go get coffee, even though I had decided earlier in the week that I should probably quit drinking caffiene altogether. I came back home and read some of Mitch Horowitz's "Daydream Believer" and then I went through all the laundry, (to get ready to take to the laundromat tomorrow... or sometime next week), while listening to Christopher Lee read "Frankenstein". After that I made a couple sandwiches and finished up the post for March 1 and the "on this day" part of March 2. I watched/listened to a new piece by Douglass Rushkoff on his Team Human YouTube Channel. I learned the notes for the melodic hook in Steely Dan's "Any Major Dude". I aim to play it backwards and see if that is worth using as a riff for a new Cruel Math song. I read a little more of "Daydream Believer" and took a nap. After I woke up, I had a smoke and then a rootbeer float. Now I'm all cozy in bed, and I started reading some more of J.F. Martel's "Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice"
and I just wanted to share this one passage that struck me... a bit of confirmation bias like Horowitz was talking about in his book. (? Maybe) All I know is I've always sort of felt this to be true in my relationship to art. and I've often told people as such.
Homer opens The Iliad and The Odyssey with the same words: "Sing Goddess." The author-centric conception of art is a relatively recent development. For animistic societies, the artist was a conduit, not the origin of the work of art. The work's content and even it's form were thought to come from another plane, one that the artist accessed under the guidance of a spirit guide, muse, or daimon. It was the artist and not art who deserved to be called the medium...
This reminds me of my own underlying disdain for "artist statements", but perhaps it's more my lacking ability to articulate and attach meaning to my work. (?) Sigh. I'm gonna get back to reading. Maybe watch an episode of Orson Welles' Great Mysteries,
or finish "The Yellow Wallpaper" movie. Perhaps both. We'll see. Bye for now.
Comments
Post a Comment