13,161. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,076

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,076

(national root of all evil day)

Time, for me, was like a long

filament : some stretched and 

curled wire spanning two places

and throwing fierce light. That

may sound like a big deal, but 

it's really nothing at all and all 

what it's left me with is a bitter

disgust. One of my old art

teacher people, from the 1967

Studio School days, Philip

Guston, has just had his show

revoked, because of content.

Not art, just content! No one

can really answer to why  -  the

book accompanying the show 

has already been printed; in 

fact, reviewed. He's been himself
dead some 20 years. No one, in

the Art world, nor anyone with a

smidgeon of sense, had objected

to anything. Shows of this nature,

large and covering a major artist

and era, take some two years to

prepare and gather, install and

review/prepare. It's only now,

at opening time, that the usual

street bastard know-nothings who

object to such things, have raised

their ignorant voices enough to

cause pussy-museums and curators

to retreat  -  not just retreat but

cancel the show and run for their

own exits, all with the dripping,

high-minded, fey, talk of those

who surrender. The cause of all

this? As I said, content! A few

recurring, late career motifs of

KKK hoods, lynching ropes,

cigars, boots, etc. Done in his

inimitable and exquisitely

painterly way. Not a history,

nor a back-story. Not a referential

heritage of, say, hate, or anger,

or bias, or venom. Nope. Just

rather the delicious folderol of

the sorts of street urchin,

know-nothing, fast-food and

pig-vomit sorts who pledge

their fealty to death and negation

instead of living and learning.

I, for one, have had it.

-

My 50 year old son came to me

the other day, telling me that he'd

now realized that everything he'd

ever been taught and schooled with

had been a complete lie. I felt the

terror of his own confusion. (He

does not see my work, nor has a

clue as to content, or even facebook,

for that matter). I felt like saying to

him 'Yes, that's the sort of stuff

I've been going over for years.'

It's been said that a prophet is not

without honor, except in his own 

country, and, yes, that's sort of

what I feel like, since not one of

familial ties  -  wife, son, etc.  -

really has an inkling at all of

what I do, write about, or show

here. Which is the same to me 

as having no honor in my own

'country'  -  meaning local and

home connections. Too bad; but

life was never meant to be all

peaches and cream (?). The base

fact is, I always feel that no one

knows me unless first they know

my work. Whatever. Their loss.

-

In any case, his only-now realization

of the lying fabric of reality, being

verbalized as it was, by him, was

surprising to me. I could have begun

with the story of Philip Guston, using

it as my lead-in example to the point,

but it would have had no effect. I 

asked what had precipitated this

thought  -  and I got the most

surprising, though understandable,

answer back. It had to do with his

high-school age son telling him, nay,

'correcting' him, that the reason for

school being off that day was NOT

Columbus Day, but instead, 'Indigenous

People's Day.' I immediately sensed

an almost 'national' and touchstone

problem. They ought to have simply

re-named the whole thing as 'National

Root Of All Evil Day.' I think it all

has to do with the 1967 introduction

of making all these simple holidays

into three-day-weekend holidays and

divorcing them from any content.

That was done, essentially, as a

bargaining bone thrown to the NEA,

teachers' unions, etc, back then. There

was really no other reason for making

non-productive, off-days so prevalent

except for the desire of the profession

for yet more time off. (Now they've got it,

ha, and they bitch through their masks).

It used to be, within context, that Feb.

12 was Lincoln's Birthday, a single

day holiday in name, because that was

when Lincoln was born; same with the

22nd, for George Washington  -  scabrous

white bastards, by today's proclaimed

standards, each they might have been,

in the manner by which everything  has

been re-efined back to nothing today.

Yet, I see none of these inessential

dickwads giving up their 3-day

teacher's spa weekends. It's all

bullshit; not just lies.

-

The kids now, they pick up all this

because the teachers tell them it's

so. Essential propaganda, and it's

only starting; and no teacher anywhere

is going to stand forth and proclaim

the wrongness of what they're doing.

Have you talked to a teacher lately?

Programmed. Smugly consumerist.

Conformist to the hilt. Without a

real thought in their head, smugly

following the societal and union

dictates of all the prescribed manners

by which they must (not should; must)

live their lives and enforce that open

others. Learning is supposed to

open doors. But these people keep

everything closed, and their frantically

frolicsome way to National Root Of

All Evil Day.