[Updates at the end. Very revealing.]
[Here I proudly acknowledge that, though I'm responsible for all the vituperation below, before, and often, Catherine King, my beloved wife, is here, and often, a temperate ghostwriter and editor, toning me down, reining me in. Most of my postings should properly read "with Catherine King," or "and Catherine King." Just so you know.]
by Jerome du Bois
I sure went over the top in my last posting on this guy, didn't I? I'm hysterical and full of rage, I hear. Tough. I don't take back a word.
He sent me another long email. What offended me most was a superior bureaucratic tone and assumption that he was above me in some way; that he was grading my behavior, that I was in some sense accountable to him. "I had higher hopes for you," he frowns. "Please post my email in full on your blog," he demands. It was the same peremptory tone that bothered me in the first email. Mister, I am in no sense in any petitionary postion to you. I do not answer to you. We have no relationship. You might as well be a barking dog below the window. Some pretentious twit once demanded of Spenser the detective, "Who is your superior?" He answered, "I have no superior. I'm not even sure I have an equal."
Yes, I have a healthy ego, and I know its limitations: a lot of my soul, blood, and tears are spread out on this blog, in thousands of words. This guy doesn't put limits on his ego, or on his arrogance. He should have stopped while he was behind. I was going to answer his email privately, but after rereading it --especially the end, about Cuba-- I changed my mind.
Over the top is the place to begin.
And no, I'm not going to quote his email in full.
Mr. du Bois.
I think you have greatly exaggerated the nature of my last email to you and your wife. My only intent for emailing you was to enter into a discourse with you as you so often request in your blog. In the spirit of having open and honest discussions about art, I felt I would comment on two pieces I found to my liking and a piece which I did not like on your blog. Do you always react with such venom against people responding to your blog? Didn't you create your blog hoping people would read it, react to it, and talk to you about it?
We created the blog because I've always wanted to edit a magazine, we love to write --not just about art, but about whatever draws our interests-- and nobody can control us. It's that independence that pisses off bureaucrats like you.
We two decide when and if and how discourse takes place. Not anyone else. Comments are closed because of violent trolls and slanderers. Nice town, downtown.
And I don't know anything about your credentials, do I? Except that you managed a dorm in college, where you saw some collages. Well, hell, then . . . Yes, anybody can criticize anything, but-- who are you, man? that I should respect you?
And speaking of respect, she is Catherine King, her own strong self, not merely the nameless, dismissive, safe, "my wife," though I have the honor of being her husband.
I am sorry if you felt I was attacking you personally. I have only read snippets of your writing because I believed it was a work in progress and I was waiting to read it as a whole.
I haven't counted lately, but the New Mango must be up to over thirty thousand words by now --published, with plenty coming up soon. It was an insult and that wasn't an apology. And you asked a specific question about a complex political, moral, and behavioral issue, and called me to task, as if I was supposed to write a term paper for a class. You know by now how I'm going to respond to that --with an upraised middle finger.
If you are not interested in what I think, why do you expect me to be interested in what you think?
I wasn't. I didn't know you existed, and didn't care. Now I do, for reasons I will give below.
Why do you only focus on the negative and not the positive? As artists, don't we create art with the risk that some of it will be accepted and some of it will be rejected by different audiences? And, why did you choose to excoriate me publicly instead of keeping our discourse in the private realm?
I'll answer the second part first. It appears you're late to the blogosphere, pal. It isn't a tea party. And the default protocol is that all emails are subject to publication and editing. But even before that, you don't tell a blogger what to do. They are among the last unspun voices around. That you tried to intimidate a blogger is a psychological tell with people who think they have some access to handles, dials, and buttons. You are behind the times, man. Fair warning.
About the negative and positive. Patience. I'll answer it near the end of my reply.
I have never attacked you publicly or privately, nor have I ever written or expressed ill will toward you. Please post my email in full on your blog so people can read it for themselves instead of relying on the bits you choose to criticize and give erroneous contexts to.
You say you do not want people to criticize your wife, but then your resort to insulting my wife's fashion sense with no knowledge of her. At least I was responding to a piece of art that was placed on public view instead of taking cheap pot shots.
Yes, you're right, I don't know a damned thing about your wife, but again, my wife has a name well known to you, which you should use: Catherine King. She is herself. So I don't apologize.
What happened to the dignity and character your generation is supposed to espouse?
What happened to yours?
I do like your wife's recent work on the pink trend in fashion--now this is something new and exciting to me.
Glad you brought that up, actually. All over the Valley, in ten dozen homes by now at least --the dwellings of those who read The Tears of Things regularly-- someone watching the news will be calling their spouse to the television to say, "Hey, honey, come here! She's right: That Catherine King Pink Thing is really happening!" Because it is. And what she conjured will become a meme. This will continue for another couple of months, until the necessary dark funereal fall, when black eclispses pink. But no one will forget it.
Again, in the interest of research, thoroughness and accuracy, please update your blog to correct the misinformation you are spreading. My position with the Arizona Commission on the Arts is not paid from state tax money--my position is funded by the Wallace Foundation (private money) as part of a five year nationwide study of participation in the arts called: the START Initiative.
Mister, I'm glad you brought this up, too. I looked up UP, and here is where the negative and postive arise, and where I call your credentials into question. In my post on your first email, I drew your attention to a public art project Catherine King and I proposed, called The Collective I, and linked to it.
You have not mentioned this $5 million, two-video-screen, public art project. Not a word. Too busy nitpicking.
From the UP website --though I'm only interested in one sentence, I'll quote the whole homepage blurb:
Thank you for your interest in the Arizona Commission on the Arts' UP/Understanding Participation program. The program is funded in part by the Wallace Foundation and is part of their national START (State Arts Partnerships for Cultural Participation) initiative supporting 13 state arts agencies to explore new strategies to build participation in the arts. The focus of UP is to explore and learn about arts participation in our own state, and using this understanding to assist our constituent artists, organizations and communities in their own efforts to build arts participation.
Project Description
The Arizona Commission on the Arts is involved in a national research project funded by the Wallace Foundation to explore new strategies to build public participation in the arts. Learning from this project has informed our agency's planning process and is integrated heavily in our new Mission and Strategic Plan.
Who is Involved?
The project is designed as a learning opportunity between the state arts agency, Arizona’s arts organizations, and consultants in the areas of arts participation, communities and artists.
From the bolded sentence above: "Public participation in the arts." The Collective I is all about that. But this is what I suspect: For you and your crew, "public participation in the arts" means publicity machinery and money --how to get more bodies turning turnstiles, and more butts in seats, more money handed over, in all your culture venues. No real participation, as we have envisioned, just the simplest way to make some money. In our vision, money-making happens, but in multifold and imaginative and elliptical and honorable and dignified and respectful and empowering ways. Not just selling the next blockbuster exhibition, opera, or musical, or merely piddling along "developing" sycophants who know how to write grants.
The Collective I is a flame we continue to nurture, and we gave it away to the world, and you didn't say a damned thing about it, Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker, though it is about as directly in the line of the UP mission as it could be --given one crucial condition, of course: your bureaucrats' definition of "participation."
We wonder what that definiton is . . . because as far as we're concerned, you have failed your job description and your mission. We don't know who you're carrying the water for --who sent you out to hassle us, in other words-- or if you came out on your own hook, but when you passed over The Collective I without a whisper, that was a tell, Mister.
Now, to end this thing.
Perhaps with a Professional Development Grant from the Commission you could go to Cuba and do research for your book, or attend a writers conference to talk about or promote your writing.
You really piss me off, you thickheaded man.
We will never go to Cuba until everyone is free, and this should be obvious had you done a couple of minutes googling us in conjunction with "Cuban Art." (Read especially the piece on Lisa Sette Gallery.) And you must really be out of the institutional art social loop, because it's well-known that the whole inspiration for the novel came out of our Cuban Art series, focusing on ASU and Lisa Sette Gallery. What, don't you know these people? Didn't Greg Sale introduce you to Marilyn Zeitlin and Ted Decker? No. I think you know what's going on. You're just needling me, and insulting every Cuban, too. Every dollar and every euro going to Cuba, every foreigner going to Cuba, keeps Cubans starving and sick. You're either ignorant or cruel, and you can't afford to be ignorant when you use the word "Cuba." Not around The Tears Of Things. Learn something!
attend a writers conference to talk about or promote your writing.
The blog promotes the writing, dingaling. And a writers' conference? You people --your "generation"-- really are thumbsuckers, aren't you? "Tell me my writing's good, George." I don't need any of you.
And I have no problem with private foundations as such. My late father Alan started the E. Blois du Bois Foundation, which has given away a lot of money to students at the three major Arizona Universities for many years. I shudder to think how much of that has been wasted on the liberal and fine arts.
[UPDATE BEGINS BELOW]
After I posted the above, I fairly promptly received two emails an hour apart from KV-B, the first of which said it would be the last one sent --but then, when lately has anyone been true to their word?
This time it's really for the record, so I'll copy and fisk his emails in full. Here is the first one, which arrived just before nine this morning:
Again, a good laugh. Your ability to misinterpret my words is incredible.
Which words exactly, Mister?
I am just trying to be helpful
where's my tiny violin?
and try to reach out to artists in this state and perhaps improve the state of the arts in Arizona. You blast me for not doing research while you clearly have not done the same. I am not late to the blogging world--I have my own--
But he does not give me the name of his blog, or link to it in any way. I don't know what it is, but I do know that we are now the #1 Google for this guy's name; no wonder he's pissed, but we have often warned people about the power of the blogs of the Long Tail, and the fact that somehow, our fate is to be the outsiders, the lepers and the tar baby of the Phoenix art scene. So be it.
and I realize that you are free to do whatever you want and say whatever you want. You asked for discourse on the arts, and I resopnded--with dignity and character, not with personal attacks.
No, you responded with personal attacks in the guise of harrumphing dismissal.
Obviously this was a waste of time and I am sorry I ever tried to make contact with you. You may stay behind your wall and throw insults as long as you wish.
What wall?
My offer to meet in person still stands.
I don't think you could handle meeting Catherine and I in person.
The second email (and I want some kickback$ for plugging UP):
Your assumptions about UP/Understanding Participation are wrong. We encourage organizations to think of participation in terms of providing deeper and diverse experiences. Most arts organizations are only concerned about butts in seats, but we are urging them to think about the quality of the experience they are providing. Often, arts organizations are so busy just maintaining themselves, they don't have the time to tackle issues of quality, depth, or diversity--so we see UP as a way to buy their time and allow them to ask a question they want answered. A main component of the UP research projects is having organizations challenge their assumptions about participation. Do they know who is in their audience? Do they know why they are coming? Do they know what experience their audience is having? How do they know these things? These are simple examples of the questions we encourage organizations to consider--a starting point. I have attached a PowerPoint presentation that we give in workshops around the state to organizations interested in doing this type of work. I hope it might clarify what UP is all about.
I've eliminated the PP presentation, of course; I am a man of mercy. But I've left in the marshmallow empty bureaucratic questions. Dude, I studied public policy, public administration, organizational behavior, and this is mere budget-justifying padding.
As far as your reference to Gregory Sale and staff at the ASU Art Museum. I have met the ASU Art Museum staff off and on in my four years at the Commission. I do not have a personal relationship with any of them, nor have I ever talked to them about you or your blog. I did ask Gregory Sale about you and he grinned. He said you wrote a fictional piece about different programs the Commission was supposedly doing. He thought it was funny. He also said you responded to his piece involving Yoko Ono. That's it--no mention of anything about Cuba or you--so I guess I am out of the loop in that respect. I do know from your blog that you do not like Heather Lineberry--makes no difference to me who you like and dislike. Whatever agendas you think I have are nonexistent. If you would have met me in person to have a real discussion, you might gain understanding and not have to rely on assumptions.
The last few people we've met in person, to have real discussions and gain understanding and even do art projects for them and not have to rely on assumptions, have SCREWED US ROYALLY, and left us hanging on the street corner, empty-handed, like suckers. So, Mister Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker, screw you, too!
Sorry, also, for offending you by suggesting you could go to Cuba. Once it is free, perhaps then you can apply for a grant and visit the country and revel in the freedom you are hoping to bring about through your writing and your blogging. I have never been to the Caribbean. My wife was born and raised in Hawai'i and is part Hawaiian--so our adventures have taken us to the Pacific. You might find the story of deposed Queen Liliu'okalani interesting. The history and politics of tropical islands and colonization is often sad and alarming.
I was born and raised on the beach in Lanikai, Oahu, Hawai'i, in 1949. My father (and Catherine's father, too, in the same Theater, the Pacific, and in the same Division, the Sixth), fought in the Marines to keep the Islands free, earning five great wounds and lifelong pain for his trouble so that my sister and brother and mother and I could grow up happy on the beach and not under fascist Japanese oppression. After the war he ran Honolulu Sporting Goods for twenty years. Are you going to tell me that my past, my very upbringing, is tainted by the blood of oppressed people of color?
My wife, Catherine King, comes from Seventeenth-Century Scots-Irish immigrants, who carved out a life with blood, sweat, and tears-mixed soil. Are you going to condemn their labors, and their hard-won advantages?
If so, let's bring out the scales, Mister.
Don't you dare try to guilt us with that reverse-racist crap.
The reason I did not mention the Collective I is because I tried to find it on your blog, but the searches never turned up a link to it.
You mean, a link like THIS ONE HERE?
I am not going to read it now because my attempts at having a rational conversation with you are obviously going nowhere. Here ends my interests in you and your world. Most of my friends advised me to ignore you, but I thought, "no, he's probably enough of a civilized man to have a conversation about what he's been writing and posting in his blog." That was a faulty assumption on my part. Sorry. Sayonara.
Iye. It may be over with you, but it isn't over with The Collective I. Some visionary city, somewhere, will pick it up. Just not Phil Gordon's city, nor Janet Napolitano's state.
And there you have it, Phoenix: A proud representative of the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Wallace Foundation, Mr. Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker.
Posted by Jerome at September 12, 2005 06:50 AM | TrackBack