So an entire month and a bit more has passed since I last wrote. Though I watched the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, I can not claim to have been involved. As I watch the movement slowly die (200 arrested in LA today), I am sad because something is passing that I fear we will not have again. All is not well, but neither can we seem to change the course on which we find ourselves. In my shared office, on the blackboard, another teacher wrote "What is this basket and where am I headed?" Oddly, none of us have erased it. S/he wrote it last year, so the feeling remains but has become acceptable, subdued–I don't know.
Nor do I have any other exciting type news to share regarding why I have not written anything. It is merely the timeless: I have been working a lot. I can say that I have been working a great deal on art, or rather how art is written about. Long reading lists have been created that will occupy the next six months of my life, and which I look forward to sharing here.
I might have mentioned these past few weeks that I have taught Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, A.S. Byatt's "Art Work" from The Matisse Stories, and Ray Bradbury's "The Smile". My students struggle to think for themselves, not because they can't but because they are afraid of looking "retarded", direct quote from class. I spend much time trying to invigorate them, to convince them that all knowledge is risk. Very few start off knowing that everything they say is clever, or that every drawing is brilliant. The point isn't even knowing that. The point is simply to produce.
I will catch up in the weeks to come on the notes and thoughts of the past while, but in the meantime I have to share with you one of the funniest blogs that I have ever come across:
http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com
If you need a laugh, enjoy!
