Why tell a story? Why take a photograph? Paint a painting, write a play … act in a play? Sing a song …
The arts are a funny thing. I got in trouble for saying this once because it sounded like I was lessening the value of art, I think, when I opined that all artists are journalists of their time. But it seems to me an inescapable truth, whether the artist is a critic or a participant, they [I apologize for switching to a plural pronoun but it is a tough call and always using he does irritate me, but he or she is ugly, and once someone proposed combining she, he and it into shit, which still strikes my funny bone, but language does evolve and dang it all I have accepted the transgendered and what will that do to pronouns and grammar? Shit indeed, and we are stuck I think with the least of many evils with they – sorry for the digression, but it actually came up very recently and I have struggled with it for literally decades and am tired of defending he as I used to, especially now that I am surrounded by he’s, having lost my only she ally, and Mouse doesn’t count because dogs are honorary males] will reflect their times.
Tom Wolfe really epitomizes this with a novel like Bonfire of the Vanities. Realer than life it is also not nearly as insane as reality. Dickens does it, and even when he moralizes or makes the good win in the end: he is reflecting his desperate desire that it should be so. Monet’s Garden is a lovely example too:
It takes you to a time and place and helps you understand one man’s perception of that space. But it is a circular game. If it is important when painting a painting or taking a photograph to be telling a story, then what is the point of a story? To paint a picture of something with words, each one being but a one-thousandth of a picture, a picture being worth a thousand words.
Sometimes there is no point and things just are. We spend so much time trying to force a narrative onto things that we often miss the things themselves. And maybe that is where art can help, even though it always contains a forced narrative often well hidden, by slowing time down and allowing one to contemplate life without constant change. A still life, so to speak:
Paul Gaugin
Still life. Vase with flowers on the window
Nature morte. Vase de fleurs à la fenêtre.
Best to leave the notion of still as dead, as the French would have it, alone for the moment. But capturing time and in that sense stopping it for just that moment is a wonderful thing. So maybe sometimes the point of a story or a song or painting is simply that it happened, an anecdote so to speak, but one that cannot help but be reflective of its moment, and somehow help us understand that which cannot be explained.
Have a Thor-oughly thoughtful Thursday, as I have mercifully come to my final point.
[That was a really bad pun about the period at the end of the sentence, which when we were proofreading out loud for my dad we had to call a “stop”, which meant that I am forever left with Mr. F. Stop Fitzgerald in my head, as though he were a master photographer with awesome focus.]
Good Morning
I agree that artists are journalists of their time. I prefer to document photographically the beauty that I see. There is a recently notable French alternative to my approach that strives to ridicule the absurdity of extremism.
I’ve been reading about that on my Kindle Fire. It came with an app that gives me 6 mos. free Washington Post. Love my Kindle, love the Post. Digital Post vs newsprint is like comparing horse and buggy to space flight. It’s $4.99/ mo after free period, and I’m sure I’ll have to have it.
I just have to remember to not put my glasses on top of my Kindle when I retire for the evening as that keeps the swipeface active resulting in dead battery next a.m.
Xty, your parenthetical aside and your w.o.d. have inspired me videotically. Here’s the first one, ’bout dat ol’ coruscatin’ Debble.
This artist does a time-shift commentary, protesting war using an historical context. I get goose bumps each time I hear it.
My feeble attempt
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dudeflickr/16213380001/
Alice’s Restaurant haunted my childhood and then my kids’. It always tempered my hawk like nature, which has been pretty much turned into more of a hummingbird nature. And humour as a vehicle for social change just never gets tired, just like Arlo.
Andy Warhol’s can of soup is a classic example, where both the choice of item and the style of presentation have come to represent a time period that both did and didn’t exist.
And this is what the fellow whose blog I stole that from wrote as a caption to his photo:
Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol invites us to reflect on sentiment, comfort, mass production, and mass consumption.
Deleted by request.
EO – please stop with the gloating. It doesn’t belong here, and it doesn’t really belong anywhere. If you are so right then there is no need to be so snarky about it and there are lots of other places on the web to vent your spleen.
Sometimes corny is on the money
unemployment rate now down to 5.6 percent. hooray!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-09/labor-participation-rate-drops-fresh-38-year-low-record-929-million-americans-not-la
I have been keeping my nose out of these kinds of articles, because nothing seems to happen anyhow other than my getting agitated, but I thought this introduction shows how important it is to consider other possibilities than one’s own perspectives suggest:
Stray Reflections
JOHN MAULDIN JANUARY 8, 2015
’Tis the season for making forecasts. I will be sending my own five-year projections this weekend, but today for your Outside the Box reading pleasure we look at some similarly longer-term prognostications from the newest member of the Mauldin Economics writing team, Jawad Mian. Jawad writes a monthly global macro advisory publication called Stray Reflections, which is read by some of the world’s largest hedge funds, family offices, and asset managers. I and my team have become fascinated with his work. Jawad is not, in my opinion, non-consensus or even contrarian, but seemingly comes at macroeconomic issues from right angles, offering a viewpoint far different from almost anything else I read.
Born and raised in the UAE, educated in Canada, and now based in Dubai, Jawad views the world differently from the vast majority of Western-born and -trained analysts. A thoughtful and clear communicator, he is a rising star in the macroeconomic space, and I am glad to have him with us at Mauldin Economics.
As Jawad himself said as we were comparing views on a phone call yesterday, “The beauty of Mauldin Economics is that none of our team is constrained to a “house view” but are encouraged to present independent insights. We are gathering a wide-ranging group of sophisticated thinkers so that we can cover all scenarios for our readers, based on our best judgment.
The truth of that statement will become clear as you read Jawad’s forecast. Over the longer term, he and I are in general agreement, but we see definitely see the world developing differently over the next one to two years. It is decidedly helpful to pay attention to variant views, so that as time unfolds we don’t find ourselves totally surprised if things don’t happen to turn out quite the way our “most likely” scenarios suggest.
Let me share something that Jawad expressed as he and I were communicating about some of our similarities and differences:
My view about the US dollar is “different” from yours, John, in the following sense. There is zen-like certainty about a stronger dollar due to the Fed’s hiking rates and US economic outperformance. I prove that Fed rate hiking has historically led to a weaker, not a stronger dollar and argue that the dollar rally is cyclical, not structural, and will soon end. Both conclusions are contrary to what the majority expects in 2015 and beyond. The consensus is misinformed of history in my view and is wrongly reading fundamentals and technicals. I expect the US dollar to be lower on a one- and three-year time frame versus most currencies, except against the yen. Relative to expectations and views held by the [rest of the] Mauldin team, I’m more optimistic about Europe, Japan, and China. I think both Japan and China are implementing the correct policy responses and are headed in the right direction, and that Europe is not facing a major deflationary bust, and all is not lost. The risk of EM contagion is also way over-hyped in my view, as are the implications of a reversal in cross-border flows. US stock outperformance versus the rest of the world should end sometime in 2015 and will coincide with the peak in the US dollar, which will ultimately result in higher gold and commodity prices and even inflation readings. Therefore I am bearish on the US dollar for at least the next two years.
I will present a considerably different view this weekend, while fully acknowledging that there are possible scenarios by which Jawad could prove to be the more on-target forecaster….
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/outsidethebox
i predict more of the same same, but different. don’t ask me?, it sounded profound when spoken in Singlish. (Singaporian English)
i got into my wife’s wine, got caught, and so i played her a song that only a couple of middle aged to even old bags like us could like. looks like i pulled it off.
but only wine. i really miss Monsieur Vert.
I agree xty. Go ahead and delete that one. I had one over at Dan’s too that I deleted myself. Sometimes things just come out all wrong. Going to take a break for a while.
Will do EO – and things do come out wrong and a break is a good idea, especially with tax time lurking just around the corner.
wacky, goofy not sleepy somehow . ahh the lyrics.
Those goofy nights are hard to know what to do with. I wrestle with just getting up and trying to enjoy being awake and trying to keep it very still so I might sleep. Lately I am not sleeping enough – I used to fall asleep around 9 pm but that was when I was making my special butter … but I would still be up around 4 am but at least I would have slept. Now it is midnight to five. But at least I was asleep. Of course my solution is often the same in all situations but I am aware of anxiety being a side-effect … damned if you do and damned if you don’t is about how I feel for all medical or even food as medicine choices. Smoke pot and your belly calms down and your pain is less bothersome, but your head gets anxious, take oxy and your pain actually goes away, but you become an irritating horrible person, eat too much salt or eat too little salt, either is fatal, same with water. Being a tea-totaler is worse than drinking one drink a day, but drinking much more … like living on a teeter-totter!
I am hoping this farther along is here on earth, but that’s just me. Still so beautiful:
Jinx.
We had a friend who loved to try to play that on guitar, often well hammered, and the lyrics are almost impossible to learn. How Dylan could do it is amazing – the verses are different lengths, and change … he is a mad poet as much as a musician.
catch up on sleep today.
weed is fading fast.
rooting for the Pack.
some David Gray that I like. obscure version maybe,
hi xty! a.m. already.
apparently he is a well documented db deluxe, but I still like his music (guitar) and this tune.
odd. maybe it will work. bit of cheesy ness, but some goodness as well.
“never apologize, never explain”…HST, Plato,? TV on mute as usual. Moonshiners (it’s all staged) and weather channel. 16, that’s cold for us.
Pete on topic as always. Music w/photos.