September 04, 2006
You Can't Say Nothing
Ampersand Jam / You Can't Say Nothing. Collage by Jerome du Bois, 2003.
Suspect All Slogans
by Jerome du Bois
Can words save us? Of course, in the coming war with Islam, the bullets and the bombs, and the brave people who deploy them, will outweigh all the words that precede them. But afterwards the afterwords will reveal that there was nothing but compulsion in that religion.
What do we have in the meantime? We've got an American al Qaeda puppet proclaiming that slavery is freedom, kneeling is standing, submission is dignity, in the all-seeing blindness of bloodlust.
We've got a couple of journalists who refuse to repudiate their forced conversions, and praise the punks who proned them out and seek the death of the West.
We've got a reconquista here in Phoenix who wants to establish "Immigrants Without Borders." Que idiota: in a borderless world, there are no immigrants. But he wants to erase meaning along with the bright line between the law and the lawless.
We've got a popular gallerist here in town who, when I showed her works like the one above, said she wasn't interested because "I don't want to be lectured at." Significance scares her; she takes refuge from truth in trivialities.
Why say anything? Who listens to me anyway? Most of our visitors are bozos who want to read about dead issues we've left behind, but ignore the beauty and truth of Catherine's words and spirit photographs.
Why bother? Because I can't say nothing. Because the richness and depth of words --words with meaning behind them, not empty slogans-- save me. Language distinguishes us from all other species on Earth.
I refuse to be a dumb animal.
Posted by Jerome at September 4, 2006 10:20 AM | TrackBack