Friday and Saturday I toured NYC with the (original) West Wing crew. They were up north to celebrate Amy's acceptance into grad school. We visited both the MoMa and the Met, strolled through Central Park, and ate lots of tasty food. Sunday, back in NJ, I got my first taste of a "New Jersey State Park," which I assure you is of the exact quality that you're imagining in your head right now. A few moderately difficult stream crossings did leave us muddy though.
Monday, I saw Will and Meryl of Primarily New Hampshire! They were on a college tour, spreadign the gospel of campaign staffing. As one of the first 25 students to arrive, I received a free copy of PNH. Flipping through the pages brought back a lot of memories. Khicks, Hughes, Mookie, Ebars, and Dale are in the book lots, and even Chicklet gets a full two-page spread. I'm in the background of one pic, which is good enough for me.
Oh, and back on Friday, when I was bored at the MoMa, I filed this on my Treo:
I'm staring at a Rothko and trying to divine its meaning. Like 99 percent of the works here, I don't "get" it. And I think I've discovered why.
I had always assumed that I was indifferent to art because of two related facts: my colorblindness and my low aesthetics coefficient. Clearly my colorblindness means I perceive the world differently than a normal person. Hence I put less emphasis on color and on aesthetics in general. However, I now think there's a wholly separate reason that I don't connect with art.
My epiphany began with a realization that I would appreciate a huge canvas of psuedo-code a lot more than the massive painting in front of me. In the case of the psuedocode, I would discover the problem the author was solving, examine the code to determine the underlying algorithm and judge how clever I thought the "artist" was.
A few minutes later I overheard a tour guide explaining Picasso's "Philosophical Brothel." She said that this painting led to the discussion amongst artist which led to cubism. The word "discussion" caught my attention, because I had never considered artists sitting in a room and trading ideas back and forth. I had never though of art as a dialectic, as a pursuit of something larger. If art was working toward a (Platonic) ideal, maybe that was an idea I could get behind.
But in this case cubism did not mark another milestone on the path to understanding or perfection. It only led to a fad. And that's my problem with modern art: it's not part of something larger. Back at MIT, an acquaintance told me that artists attempted to recapture reality on the canvass until photography was invented. Once you had a physical picture of reality, uber-accurate paintings were no longer necessary. Art ceased to be a dialectic and became a cacophony of ideas.
This chaos is in contrast to the sciences, where scholars are in continuous pursuit of the truth. Instead, modern art is the pursuit to be the first to paint a black square on a red background. And I'll never appreciate that.
1. What do you mean, "even Chicklet?" Harumph.
2. :-P to your reductive and ill-informed dismissal of visual art!
3. I have been meaning to make a Dean Scream joke about the excited recital of states in your last post, but it is only now-- as I procrastinate against writing a response paper-- that I am getting around to doing it. Or alluding to it, as the case may be.
1. Whoops, I meant "Chicklet even...". Two-page spread! Be happy :)
2. If by reductive, you mean logical, I'll take it as a compliment.
3. Oh, I already made that joke at the Corzine victory party...it was the first time I had imitated that speech with a smile on my face :) Yay Democrats!