Just Another Cultural Visionary: Recent Comments

Comment on now and the nihil, or 'making value conscious'

Jambontoo — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:39:03 GMT

I have enjoyed the creative way in which you have appropriated some of the insights of Fichte. Nice paintings as well. Keep it up.

Comment on more philosophy crap

Suzie — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:17:36 GMT

Thank you for the precision of your expression. It is far from crap. I need to think this through for a while for a intellectual response.

Comment on around ajo - 13008 - 30x40

Will — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:13:50 GMT

Hi Liz, Of course I remember you. How are you doing? Hope all is well. Regards, Will

Comment on nostalgia

Suzie — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:26:10 GMT

Thank you, Jeremy.

Comment on et cetera...

LIZ — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:00:53 GMT

WILL YOU LOOK GREAT!I am glad to see you are still painting.

Comment on around ajo - 13008 - 30x40

Liz — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:20:03 GMT

Hi Will remember me Liz (from Sonoma County Transit)a long time ago? Great to see your site & that you are still around.

Comment on The Youngest World War ll Veteran, Engelbert Otto Bauer

Johanna — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:06:26 GMT

That's my daddy! =]

Comment on Norman Mailer 1923 - 2007

Jeremy — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:35:32 GMT

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Rereading and sitting with this almost sets me dreaming. It sounds harsher than I intented, but I wouldn't change it. But I read a blog piece by Dick Cavett in the Times about a late night show he did with Mailer, Vidal and Flanner and I start to remember the 60's in terms of that weird 50's energy that not only spilled out of the 50's but also really defined the 60's.

If everyone pretends that everything is hunky-dwinky long enough, pretty soon you get this crazed angst energy, because the world is never basically OK. Maybe we're back there now. It's not just everyone saying it's AOK, but having some oppressive force and then coming out of it saying things are alright -- like the Depression and WW II for the 50's. Now it's the 'war on terror' and no real philosophy. At the moment, that real anxiety vibration is still a very low tone from where I sit -- maybe it's more forceful for the kids. But, in any case, it's got to come out at some point.

Cavett's thing reminds us of how television once had a legitimate intellectual dimension. As much as I whack Mailer for his posturing about philosophy when he really didn't have a clue, the fact that he postured says something telling about then and now.

And Mailer DID give us a voice for that crazy angst energy that came out of the 50's and propelled and defined so much of what happened in the 60's.

It almost makes me want to write something larger.

Comment on trying democracy

will — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:21:55 GMT

Well Done!

Comment on the neo-classical

Jeremy — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:09:38 GMT

The maneuver looks like something learned in a classroom. When we look at all the deflection modes that are commonly presented in the contemporary classroom (since there is almost no organic certainty in the arts anymore - at least among teachers), we can understand why most graduates are ineducable.

But the neo-classical is a special case. Since neo-classicism at this point is the minority view, I assume anyone who overtly or covertly espouses it must resort to the peculiar technique you describe.

Neo-classicism, in the sense of gathering the values out of tradition, is the only solution to the contemporary dilemma. But the same word or phrase covers some of the worst aspects of the contemporary arts. We have neo-classical versions of almost every 'radical' departure in the last hundred plus years. Fauvism, German Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, all have had their 'neo-classical' reinterpretations.

One would have thought that the presumption that we could dump tradition would have exhausted itself by now. But the inertial force of the market apparently depends on it. Billions in investments cannot be gainsaid.

The only answer is Cezanne. To continue to gather values with an open heart and a clear mind wherever one finds them, is the only answer to the self-inflating puffery of fools.

Tony's work is the perfect response.