A few words from a well mustachioed man...

"This is an artist as an artist should be, modest in his requirement: there are only two things he really wants, his bread and his art"

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Dustbiting and the Artist's Inevitable Fate

The issue of digital copyright is a difficult one for me because, as a self-professed film and music geek I usually find myself on the side of the artist. But, as a film and music geek, I find myself balking at the idea of having to pay for all the art I consume. I also give credence to the idea that a better informed populace makes for a superior society. Once one allows for the filtering of the internet, the editing away of bits and pieces, one risks losing it as a valid representation of humanity's rich pageantry.

In spite of the noble sentiments, I find economics to be the driving force in my opinion on this issue. I have no desire to start paying for what I now get for free. Plus, it is under such oppressive circumstances that art thrives. Artists, express this frustration through your art! Strive, struggle, produce! And, If you should die starving hysterical naked, dragging yourselves through the negro streets at dawn, well...we'll call you traditionalists and move on.

Props to my man Ginsberg! (please don't litigate)

Bringing the Good News

(Edvard Munch - "Evening on Karl Johan Street", lest we forget the substantial, existential angst of the modernists. This painting fucks me up every time I look at it)

What can one say about postmodernism? It seems an unfortunate progression from Nietzsche and his deity-denying antics to this new position. At the beginning of the 20th century our German friend was happy to declare us all free from "God", "Truth", and all abstract concepts beginning with capital letters. It was a liberation from the falsity of the old systems, and deserved celebrating.

For me, there is nothing to celebrate in postmodernism. It does not reveal the falsity of an old situation of being to replace it with newer, better, more genuine system of thought. It pulls aside the curtain to reveal a fragmented, incomprehensible media-master of a Wizard of Oz, in whom there is no truth and from whom there is no escape. If Archimedes had thought up post-modernism in the bathtub, he would not have shouted "eureka!", he would have slit his wrists.