by Jerome du Bois
1. Islam in Arizona Schools
As far as we know, the seventh-grade social-studies text Across the Centuries will still be taught in the Scottsdale Unified School District this year. This means that students will be subject to the "celebration" of Ramadan for a month, in school, later this school year, to attempt to immerse American youth in Islam. No other world religion enjoys this privilege. We'll see if any parents object, and follow the story as we did earlier this year. Please email us if you know anything new, and we'll post it.
2. You're Just Mad Because . . .
There's a persistent notion that we attack the downtown Phoenix art scene out of sour grapes, or bitterness at having that glorious door shut in our faces. It's easier for our targets to believe that than look at themselves and the things they need to change. Of course, now they're busy changing since the cops and the rest of the law came down on them, to remind them of their status as ordinary citizens like the rest of us who must obey the law, and not privileged twits who can walk between the raindrops.
By focusing on our anger, or the angry parts of certain posts, some of our readers conveniently ignore our large-scale projects and ambitious, positive notions. We have not received a single supportive or even inquisitive email about The Collective I, for example, or the Glorious Golden Grand Avenue Vision, or The Antidote, or The Liberty Pole. And pointed, substantive questions like "Where is the Arizona art blog?" and "Why didn't somebody cover the Arizona Biennial 2005?" get passed over in silence. Too busy accusing us of hating everybody and being negative.
3. The Wilting Correspondents
We closed comments ("The Blog You Love To Hate," as Catherine says), but we sometimes publish and respond to critical emails. This correspondence doesn't last long, usually. After one or two postings by us, they run off. Readers may draw their own conclusions, but mine is that once we dispose of the personal attacks on us, there's nothing much left to say. Mr. Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker is the latest one to learn that we don't take it, we do not tolerate one iota of disrespect, and we're not pliable supplicants impressed by some art bureaucrat or credentialed authority.
4. The Remorae
This shark has at least one remora, who goes by theklute. On his tiny blog, he links to something I've written, makes a one-line comment, and goes away to copy this micro-post at several other user-locations on livejournal. Meanwhile, I've done all the work. And the kind of hybrid-blog he operates from is swarming with other pseudonymous sucker-fish, plugging in their own inane comments. One said, dismissively, that The Collective I reminded them of Blade Runner. Wow. But that's about as deep as it gets with these people.
5. The Arizona Biennial 2005
Finally, back to that question about the lack of Biennial coverage. We think it's important. It ran from May 15 to August 15. Nobody from any newspaper in the state covered it. Every artist represented came from Arizona. No artist, as far as we know, lobbied for coverage. Nobody started a blog just for the Biennial, even though some of these artists have created a blog for a stupid local exhibition before, youstilldrawlikeagirl. Why didn't they create an online Biennial, so people could know what they were driving down, or up, or over to see? Some of these artists are web-savvy. I don't know what happened, but the lack of motivation and imagination yawns right in your face, doesn't it?
Posted by Jerome at September 15, 2005 07:40 AM | TrackBack