The Tears of Things

Talking Falsely, Talking True

No Bibo No Mas. Photograph © 2006 Jerome du Bois & Catherine King.

. . . so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.
--Bob Dylan, True Bard

by Jerome du Bois

While the dust is still settling from the recent comment flurry, let's highlight some topics from the last two postings, and those that arose in the comments. Talk about shining a light? Take off your blinders but put on your shades.

First, I'm going to make damn sure nobody is confused about the reverse racism and misogyny which pervade our culture and which get foregrounded in Phoenix. The default setup is that one should be proud of one's heritage, so long as you're not white. In that case, you hang your head and drag your guilty ass around saying how sorry you are your ancestors went around banging damn near everybody upside the head but Martians. Sorry sorry sorry. If you say there's something hinky about this setup, and, not only that, you're proud you come from English-Irish Pilgrims or French-Dutch Huguenots, and you're a proud American --well, then, some pissant pipes up like a cuckoo bird, squeaking Nazi! Nazi! Nazi!

Renee Cox, Kara Walker, John Leanos, William Pope.L, and Beverly McIver can say, do, or depict any vile fiction that they might imagine about "white"-"color" relations, and everybody oohs and aahs and gives them prizes and money, including Creative Capital grants for the last three named above. Nobody criticizes their racism, their profiting from questionable victimization, or their false reinterpretations of US history.

If Catherine was a Native American woman (with her actual troubled background: see Standup Woman, below), people would be fawning over the Portraits we do of her. (Picture it: "Jerome, there's something I've never told you before; I'm one-sixty-fourth Yaqui." "Yes! I can see it now: St. Catherine Silver Cloud!") But in a town fixated by political cowardice, the art of those Portraits, including No Bibo No Mas, cannot be allowed any aesthetic purchase, lest it lead to the monetary kind.

The misogyny is obvious, again, unfortunately, using Catherine as an example. When we posted our first Portrait of her, at least three jerks out there made caricatures and tried to circulate them on discussion forums, including the now-defunct labelhorde. Why did they do that? Because they have worms in their hearts. Would they do that to Annie Lopez? Well, would anyone? Hell no, it's hands-off on account of her ethnicity but by the same token, Catherine is fair game because of her skin color and her beliefs. Even now, as far as we know, similar ugly things might be going on about Catherine in the snickering corners of invitation-only listservs, for example. If so, we have much to say about it, but we would of course begin with the Robert Irwin Double Salute. Of which more below.

Next, though, all the narcissistic hand-waving in the comments by Bill Campana and Bernard Shober don't distract us from the light we're shining on the hypocrisy in the Partnership For Innovation. Specifically:

(1) flawed methodology, (2) taxpayer support of artists, (3) artists deserving public money as artists, no matter the quality of their work, (4) what real innovation means, (5) conflicts of interest, and especially (6) misogyny.

Shober, in a comment, calls these points "garbage," and says they should be thrown out. Without a single word of discussion. Because-- trust him. This is Dhimmi the Kaped Krusader talking. He says no reader should go beyond his word. Bernard, in your tiny world perhaps your word is fiat, but in the real world rational people discuss the pros and cons of their positions. Dismissing them out of hand is fascistic, another one of your handy words. You arrogant little strutter. You think you can come in here and silence this room? Dream on. I'll be getting back to you and your incipient stalking.

Naturally we sent out emails about this article to some of the principal parties, including the Arizona Commission on the Arts, which includes this invitation in the Report:

We encourage you to read the complete report and then send us your comments, particularly as they relate to the existing structures (i.e., how they could be shored up, expanded, or enhanced given the information presented in the report.) Please email you [sic] comments to researchreport@azarts.gov.

Of course the State responded immediately and positively and warmly and we've been having a series of lively and fruitful . . . wait wait wait; crap, that's another world in the multiverse; I get mixed up sometimes. In this world we got the big goose egg, yeah, except . . . look, on the horizon . . . shade your eyes, who's that approaching? Two riders? No, two crawlers. Ah! It's those two clown-tramps from Waiting for Godot! Or . . . no, wait, they don't even rise to the level of those plug nickels. It's only Campana and Shober --you know, the spoken-word guys.

It's not as if they're players, correct? As far as I know they control no budgets, shape no agendas, have no official handles, dials, or art-powerful cell-phone numbers in reach of their hands. Neither do we. But they are the only ones who responded, like two stony-hearted spear-carriers enacting some not-so-comic opera, galumphing around and distracting people with personal attacks on us.

About those original verbal and visual attacks on my wife, Billyboy and Bernard: although you did not author them, you never objected to them, and Catherine has the feeling that, in these comment threads, you're looking past her; you won't acknowledge her. Well hell, who can blame pomo posers like you two? She's a powerful woman, that's for damn sure. Still, it's a fact that you will not write one line of support for a woman who has never asked such a thing from anyone, and never would; but who has forged a path through life against obstacles --yeah, physical and muscular and male-- that would shrink whatever cojones you could still claim, you petty, petty excuses for men.

As for your attention to me, Bernard: In one line? It's creepy as hell. In an earlier thread, you went on with comparisons between prominent bloggers, then ended with "You've got me." No, you creep, I do not. I mean --Eeewww. One hundred eighty degrees of separation. Then this line about the "joys" of a near-eidetic memory --Catherine nearly hurled-- and then a quote from me about giving the middle fingers --the Robert Irwin Double Salute-- with a nailed-down date. You seem so proud, but you look so foolish, man. First, I don't believe the eidetic schtick; the "near" gives away the lie, at least to me. Even if true, why admit to a memory bank about me? It's all very queer.

Bulletin: though you seem to know so much about me and my writings, Shober, there's only one written sentence of yours which I can clearly recall, from back in the ugly days when we visited your livejournal site from time to time. I don't know any other single line from anything you've uttered into the world, and I can't imagine any reason I would search one out. But this one . . . It was about making an Italian dinner and then "watching the Sunday cartoon lineup on Fox." More than once I've used it as a joke between Catherine and I, about trivial blogging. I never mentioned your name, but now she knows: "That was Bernard?!" she exclaimed with a big smile.

But about that specifically-dated reference to the Western gesture of derision, which led to a later one: I suggest you read both of them; especially the second one, in which my wife Catherine King shines so brightly as a writer that she puts you two in the shade for sure. Just as importantly, that second essay, which is about 9/11 and being a standup person, was written through angry, bitter, but sight-clearing tears. When we first started this blog, we had a tagline we didn't want to overuse:

Read it and weep.

And when you're done, for the benefit of all, I've reprinted in a coda the vignette Catherine and I call The Robert Irwin Double Salute, which is about American freedom of expression in the face of arbitrary power, and which we now direct to . . . well, you know who you are, you sonsofbitches.

CODA:

My favorite Robert Irwin story, on pp. 94+95 of Lawrence Weschler's book Seeing Is Forgetting The Name Of The Thing One Sees, is about ignorant arrogance:

. . . Irwin drifted into an anecdote about a confrontation that occurred the night the Museum of Modern Art’s 1965 touring exhibition, ‘The Responsive Eye,’ opened at the Pasadena Art Museum. (His dots were included in an appendage to the show, flanking a group of Reinhardts.)

“It was a big show, so before the opening there was a fancy dinner in celebration, and all the big patrons were there, and they invited some of the artists. People were just put at tables -- you know how they do it: mix groups -- and I was at this table with several Pasadena types, including this lady who had just given the museum a million dollars. The dinner was very, you know . . . you get six strangers sitting at a table, so it’s one of those stilted situations. Plus there’s a terrific imbalance in terms of what people are doing there.

“But anyway, at the museum, later that evening, this lady all of a sudden just came up to me and told me, literally told me that I was not to do this kind of art anymore, that I was no longer to perform in this way. I mean, for some reason she got the idea that she could tell me that: she just insisted the whole thing was absolutely un-Christian, anti-American, whatever. And what struck me the funniest was how she told me that I was not to do this any longer. I was to cease and desist: that was it.

“Well, in the direct confrontation, I didn’t react at first. I just sort of listened to her and thought, ‘How weird.’ Eventually I turned around and started to walk away. When I got halfway across the room, this big crowded room, she started shouting, ‘Don’t you walk away from me like that!’

“So I spun around and yelled, ‘Fuck you, lady!’”

Bob was now laughing heartily, savoring the memory, the middle finger on his extended left hand upthrust in sweet recapitulation.

“And then I got really mad, and I shouted, ‘Fuck you, you dumb son of a bitch!’”

More laughter, the middle fingers of both hands proferred defiantly.

“And she just fainted.” Calming down. “They literally had to carry her out of the place.”

Ah, the Robert Irwin Double Salute. It always warms the cockles of my heart.

Posted by Jerome at August 23, 2007 06:12 PM | TrackBack