The New Inquiry

Check out this awesome new blog that I'm contributing to:

http://thenewinquiry.tumblr.com

Your internet resource for all things interesting and smart.

"...you have treated the arts as the cherry on the cake; it needs to be the yeast."

I really enjoyed this video. Mallika Sarabhai is an amazing speaker, largely due to her performance background, and is adamantly dealing with a subject we are all plagued with in this globalized society. There are things we know and dislike about the world; statistics, images, stories; these problems that we know must change together. To help people, to help ourselves. She suggests that art is the platform for this transformation and thus calls for placement in the forefront of humanity's plans for positive and effective change. I think very highly of what she is doing; making an active decision to be the change she wants to see take place. Taking ultimate responsibility for her dissatisfaction in our world.
But what about the artists, like myself, who don't deal with overtly political subjects in their work? This video made me confront myself and my work - if art aims to be and is the "yeast" or progressive ingredient for change, what do my images and words contribute? What is important for me to propagate, and how can I do this in a subtle yet effective way? Really, what am I fundamentally dissatisfied with in our world?
True, we need to be the change we want to see, and yes, art is the platform, however, I think as an artists/writer it is important that we make a conscious decision as far as the battles that we approach. We need to find our appropriate level of involvement, so as not to be overwhelmed with this huge world we're dealing with - which as we know is not an unlikely or uncommon occurrence. I guess this video most importantly urges us, as artist of any type of work, to remind ourselves of this power we potentially possess. Lest we forget.

Dan Beachy-Quick on Parenthood

A short reflection on parenthood by one of the people I greatly admire in this world. Published in the NY Times, last summer in the 'Modern Love' section. Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/fashion/03love.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

this treehouse

the tops of church
steeples, vertical hidden
by the breath of clouds, things
move slower moving through them.
things move in familiar.

for weeks, i sat up
before bed after
bed. and i finally
realized what it means
that we each
have our own life.


and the dishes
sit unclean amongst
the foodscraps, fruitflies
the compost bin is full.

and thousands flew out of it outside.

Nathan Redwood

I saw the work of the painter Nathan Redwood, in an e-mail I received from re-title; I really love it. It's very loose and layered and graphic. The patterns and colors sold me. He's an SAIC alum. http://www.nathanredwood.com

Wallace Stevens Revisited

“Individual poets, whatever their imperfections may be, are driven all their lives by that inner companion of the conscience which is, after all, the genius of poetry in their hearts and minds. I speak of a companion of the conscience because to every faithful poet, the faithful poem is an act of conscience.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/books/review/Vendler-t.html

Many of us, myself included until recently, want to believe that our work, poetry and visual art especially, can somehow avoid the personal. Our individuality is sterilized to keep the skill and intellectualism intact; a necessary distance to us artists afraid of triteness and confessionality. But more and more I realize that this is what makes the poem my own. We must learn the discretion through skill, and then we are no longer required to censor in the way we never did in our high school journaling. We must trust ourselves.

Holy Sh*t: Super-Kamiokande

The Super-Kamiokande is a Cherenkov detector. I'm not really even sure what this is used for honestly; the science is very much above my head. But it is beautiful.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/super-kamiokande.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sk/index-e.html