The Tears of Things

Sorry, Wrong Address

by Jerome du Bois

[The comments on the last post will be necessary background for this one.]

Judging by the comments we received (and a couple of emails) on "Not Art Bloggers @ All," we totally misunderstood the promotion of both the form and motivation of this . . . gathering. We thought they were serious, since they had announced a formal topic --"The Impact of Bloggers on the Art World"-- called themselves an organization, with a website and logo and four-year history, and announced a "conference" with a "panel" which was part of a series of other panels whose participants we assumed took their subjects seriously. But now we're told to lighten up, it was all about just getting together and schmoozing. Camaraderie and such. Stepping away from the screen for some face-to-face. Shaking hands and eating bananas and sketching. We just didn't get it. Everybody's cool --except for that sadistic stab by Hrag Vartanian (sounds "foreign," dudn't it, Sharon?), who seems to have exhausted his compassion on the Armenians.

Yes, we seemed to have touched several nerves. Yesterday Sharon Butler linked to my "Not @ All" piece from the ArtBloggers@ blog, quoting an early paragraph and using a variation of the word "cringe" for the third time in our contacts with her. ("Cringe" was one of Catherine's additions to the "Not @ All" post, suggested to me while we were editing it. Butler has picked up on the word, either because she suffers from echolalia or out of subconcious guilt over her ethnic faux pas, to which Catherine was referring.) She said we were "link-baiting," a practice Catherine had never heard of and I had only the outlines of. Catherine sent her a comment to say so.

Today, that entry is missing from the ArtBloggers@ website. Just gone. But the reader may pop up this Google screen capture to see that I'm not making this up. Butler's busted; she pulled the entry, probably because she realized that she was engaged in the same stinky-sounding practice she was accusing us of. Which we weren't. It occurs to me that if we were doing that, we would have hyperlinked the panelists' websites, and whoever else we could squeeze in --exactly the way Franklin Einspruch did in his micro-report on the conference which got me going on this crew in the first place. Again, I thought he was pointing to something serious in a limp-handed way, but now I see it was only, in the sillylingo he uses, a shout out to his peeps. Otherwise, nothing much to see here.

Butler again unconsciously reveals the obsession that she and her friends seem to have with traffic. How many hits do you get? Should we go mainstream? Who reads you? Eleventy-two ways to send your sitemeter soaring! So I imagine she's very familiar with "link-baiting."

But we aren't, and we've said it before, that we are witnessing, our blog is mainly for the record, and we're only interested in focusing the relevant eyes to the relevant posts. Which is why we only emailed the panel, and Franklin, who alerted me to the conference. We are not about generating loads of comments. Most comments we get go off-topic right away, the new topic usually being about the commenter and not the post. And that's what happened here as well, as these true lightweights --Franklin Einspruch, Ed Winkleman, Paddy Johnson, Joanne Mattera, Sharon Butler, and the evil imp HV-- ignored any Big Questions and any challenges to their trumped-up fauxthority to try to convince us that what we thought was scholarship was only a schmoozefest.

But it's easy to disprove that contention as well. On the ArtBloggers@ site, if you scroll down, you'll find an entry that says the thing at Red Dot will be casual, no program planned. The next most recent entry above that one announces that there will be a conference, with a panel, and a formal topic. So what does that tell you? Still no agenda, but it sure sounds like they shaped it up a lot. Would readers other than us be as misled as we were? or is there some invisible New York irony we're missing? I think not. These people seem too thick. Why didn't Sharon Butler reflect, reason, think twice, three times, before putting up her link-bait post? What, is she from the boondocks of Bumf*ck, Egypt?

I have a few more things to say about those comments on the last post.

* * * * *

The reader can decide if Franklin is lazy --though he sets the tone for the rest: "an informal chat among some writers." I'm going to take issue with his last paragraph:

I'll say this, though: One, your scenario of what could have happened, but didn't, presupposes opportunities that didn't exist and efforts that no one could have mustered given their circumstances. Two, your estimation of what these people want for themselves presupposes telepathy. And three, I apologize for misspelling "attendance," and absolutely nothing else.

One, it isn't difficult to read simple minds. Two, I didn't ask for an apology, nor imply it, so why bring it up? And three, my scenario of rounds of questions and topics for conferences happens all the time at serious universities, and was doing so long before email. "Mustering" implies last-minute scrambling, which sounds like the way Franklin and his friends think. Professors needing tenure make time for these research projects, and many other research models which presuppose long lead time and multiple passes, with minimal weekly and daily maintenance, to make the whole thing manageable, and then devoting more time as the project nears its end; but that's when the time is most productive, because all the chaff has been sifted off by then. Don't they learn this kind of stuff anymore? And these panel people are not in straitened circumstances, especially the academics among them.

Ed Winkleman jukes around with excuses:

The panelists and the folks who listened in and asked questions did so unpaid, early [10 AM?!] on a Sunday morning, only because they were interested in what might happen. Your critique might be more appropriate had the event been billed as more than just a chance "to step away from the computer," but it wasn't.

Yes it was. See above. But I am shocked to learn that they were unpaid. In this brave new world, which has such people in it?

. . . That was irony, Mr. Winkleman. I use it occasionally. He also says that nobody pays him to blog, and he's not a professional writer anyway, and anyway he has a business to run, and anyway . . . hey, whereya go-win, gimme a dollah . . .

He's not a blogger, he's a dilettante. The most extensive piece I've seen from him lately was about gallerinas.

Paddy Johnson, a woman, tries to correct the wrong person in her comment. First she quotes my post:

Paddy Johnson talked about the consequences of what she writes . . .

then notes

Actually, someone else on the panel discussed those issues not me. Please correct your post.

Okay, Ms. Johnson, stick close so you don't get lost. Go to my earlier posting and you'll see that I was quoting your fellow panelist and moderator, Joanne Mattera. It was she who made the mistake, and it's clearly written there, so why are you being so careless? You need to talk with her about it first. If I'm reporting a mistake, it's her mistake, and your correction is noted.

Ms. Johnson sent us an email as well. It contains lapses of syntax and spelling. I will reproduce most of it here, since it fits with my theme:

A correction: I never said it was one thing to write something negative on your blog, and another to run into the object of derision. I'm not sure what I said to make you think that, but it certainly wasn't something I meant to be interpreted that way. Carol Diehl complained about people not talking to her after she'd written negative reviews, and said the profession wasn't for everyone for that reason. I don't make any claims about anyone taking my "critique" of Red Dot seriously -- it certainly wasn't meant to be taken that way. I also never talk about those concerns in a public forum. To my mind panel discussions, are in part, a means of promote your professional activities, so you're really shooting yourself in the foot if you decide to use that form to complain the job. What's more, the fact that practice can be seen as a means of simply boasting your own self importance which is likely to be grating to people.

As I said before: PEOPLE WON'T LIKE YOU. The ultimate nightmare for these folks.

And this tell: I don't make any claims about anyone taking my "critique" of Red Dot seriously -- it certainly wasn't meant to be taken that way.

Then why the hell is she writing, anyway?

Most important to us, note also the context of her urge for clarification. I asked her a specific question: Do you have to go out into public strapped (armed) because of what you have written on your blog? She blithely and completely ignores the question, and exhibits absolutely no compassion or empathy for our position, our continuing predicament. Because it's crucial that we understand this trivial correction. That's cold. That's a cold heart there.

And she isn't alone. Not one of these commenters showed a trace of concern for our physical or psychic safety, or uttered a word of sympathy for our professional and personal plight. They couldn't wait to tell us they were lightweights, just friends chilling out, and most kept mum on their own blogs to hide any evidence that we ever said anything. (C-Monster has a one-liner. Butler tried to turn back time. Franklin and the rest are keeping their blogs shut about it.)

On my first post, I called these people lots of names. Let's add cowards to that list.

Finally, Joanne Mattera, who co-organized the thing in the first place.

You spent more time writing a response than we spent on the panel.

Remaking a point I made obvious in my first post. So?

Here's the thing, Jerome: We did the panel for enjoyment, to share information, and to reach out into a community that doesn't typically come together in real time and space. We had a great time.

Maybe that's because you have a steam-driven mind in an electronic world.

I'm responding only because you sent me an e-mail of your comments. I would not have known about your blog otherwise. I realize, after reading the posted comments, that you did so to create some interest in it.

You realize wrong. I notified you out of courtesy. Notice that I emailed you, all of you; I didn't hyperlink any of your blogs. (I don't know how Vartanian found out about it; one of you must have notified him.) None of you are interesting enough to pay much attention to, or to attract the attention of, and it appears, based on the intellectual level of the comments we've received, that our postings may be beyond you --your hearts, mostly, but your stunted minds as well.

You might ask yourself why you felt the need to respond to our camaraderie with such a degree of anger, bitterness and condescension. Hey, do you know Charlie Finch, by any chance?

I disagree with Charlie Finch about almost everything, but he loves his native city and he's got more chutzpah and heart than all of you clowns combined.

You might ask yourself why you feel the need to respond to our direct and cogent questions and challenges with evasion, excuses, and condescension. We won't be bullied. Hey, do you know Ward Churchill, by any chance? You act like him, but you're an empty turtleneck, just like him.

Well, I'm done with these bozos for now. Obviously we showed up at the wrong address. But we don't give up hope. Somewhere in the blogosphere, right now even, there may be a real conversation going on among genuine art bloggers. Maybe Catherine and I will find it, but these people won't, because they aren't even looking for it.

Posted by Jerome at April 9, 2008 07:20 PM | TrackBack