The Tears of Things

Just What We Need: Another Anti-American Arizona Pendejo

by Jerome du Bois

There's an amazing sculpture up now at the Heard Museum, part of a new show called La Realidad, by some artist with a forgettable name. Anyway, the sculpture:

It's a 20-foot statue, made of papier-mache, of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Although she's fully clothed, it's obvious she's visited a breast man in BevHills. The traditional needles of light have been replaced by syringes, like the Acid Queen from Tommy, and, like Her, she bears a look of wide-eyed fanaticism. Most tellingly, she is lifting her right leg and foot to send a bunch of little brown Indians flying northward to the USA. Inscribed on the base: Andale! Andale! Reconquista!

Heck. You don't believe me. And you're right not to. Who could get something so un-PC past some piss-elegant committee at the Heard? But if you're American citizen (born here) Hector Ruiz, who loathes the USA, you may do stuff like this:

Like the King Kong blonde, who clutches a tiny, hapless businessman in her manicured hands. Misogyny? Nah, because no one in this tableau comes off as noble. Not the lasso-wielding Dubya-esque cowboy straddling the airplane piloted by Jesus. Nor the Stetson-hatted Hoss who sits behind him, clutching a missile as if it were a spear. Not even the Statue of Liberty gets off Ruiz's hook. In his version, Lady Liberty's foot is raised as if she's about to kick the shit out of the huddled masses yearning to be free.

He's not just a typical clichéd leftist artist. He's a whiner, too.

"America is so appealing to the rest of the world," Ruiz says . . . But the things that are appealing are so in your face, so harsh."

Awww. Somebody got in his little sensitive face. Somebody was harsh to him. Maybe more than one person. Maybe --we need to hear this-- maybe more than once! Horrors! And this:

Ruiz, 34, says his take on his native land comes from spending two years abroad and experiencing a sort of reverse culture shock when he returned home. He says he could suddenly see Americans the way the rest of the world sees us. "There's this arrogant American [persona] that comes across as stubborn and unbending," says Ruiz.

I've been asking myself which countries this guy travelled to. Australia? I doubt it. Too brash, stubborn, unbending, and in-your-face. Israel? No, for the same reasons. Maybe England, where it's illegal to defend yourself against muggers and burglars. They bend over good there. Same with most of Western Europe. Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands . . . nothing harsh there except the muffled cries of the dhimmis being strangled by Islam. He probably didn't notice, or didn't care, if he had been anywhere there.

I don't give a rat's patootie which country or countries he has or hasn't been to. He has his head up his own ass if he prefers any other country to this one, which raised and educated his parents, his siblings, and himself without so much as asking for a thank you. It's part of what the country does for its citizens. And all it asks is an acknowledgement of the mutual achievement between the citizen and the rule of law, the giant invisible structure which makes this whole sonofabitch's life possible. (God! People!)

And I guarantee you that the United States of America has never harmed this man. Tell me I'm wrong, pendejo. But don't thank Liberty, Hector, and all the men and women who stood on a wall for you and yours. Instead, make fun of Her, belittle Her, as you probably do to the real women in your life. (If the misogyny fits . . .) Other so-called artists have done worse. You couldn't possible think that you are original in those images above. It's idiotarian boilerplate, and it's getting soooo old.

Catherine just reminded me that this ungrateful man --and Mark Newport, from the previous post-- are the same age that my father was --34-- when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, about twenty miles from where he lived with his new bride and infant daughter. To protect them, and the country, he went away to fight, and fought as a hero. A real one. He kicked ass all over the Pacific Theater. He prevailed, came home, and started his life over.

So what the fuck are you wankers whining about?

You know, when you get a life, a real life, when you do something besides papier-mache --isn't that so fourth grade, Hectorette?-- when you can make art that takes on Reality, one-on-one, not your made-up MoveOn mash-up Spanglish fantasy-- until then you're just part of the problem, mucking about in the rebarb.

By the way, did you visit Mexico, Hectoroonio? They just published these stamps about Memin Pinguin (HT:Malkin), who makes L'il Black Sambo look like Louis Farrakhan. Why not, this first Friday --yeah, I know it's short notice-- why don't you feature this series in the half-gallery-space you usually devote to Minority Artists?

By the way twice, I'm descended from French Protestants who came here in 1650. I'm pretty sure I qualify as a member of a minority. But somehow, I doubt you'd turn over half your oozy brown gallery to me.

LIke I'd take anything from you, Hector Ruiz.

Superwimp The Non-Protector

I'm trying to push the idea of hero as protector, and the idea that a soft, warm sweater also protects.
--Mark Newport

"What did you do in the Islamic War, Daddy?" asked Mark Newport's children.
"I knitted," he answered.
--Apocryphal

by Jerome du Bois

There's an Arizona State University (ASU) professor of fabric arts named Mark Newport who knits superhero costumes, using himself as a model. He also embroiders comic-book covers, makes quilts from comic-book pages, and will soon be featured in a series of digital images of himself in his costumes "in the role of protector."

Meanwhile, we all have a scimitar at our throats. You want to call this twinkiedoodle for help? Think he'll protect you? He can't. He'll hand you something soft and pretty, though. He is impotence personified, even glorified. Knitting is his kryptonite for us all. He knitted and sewed right through 9/11 and probably didn't drop a stitch. He says,

his work represents "how I see the world, instead of how the world is supposed to be seen, or tells you how to be . . ."

Damn that pesky reality! Knit a sweater for Osama and maybe he won't chop your head. If I close my eyes, you can't see me. It's a super-power.

Oh, wait, it's just art, it's not about real life. No need to get angry.

The contrast between the masculine icons and the soft, knitted suits provides a provocative visual, says curator John Spiak. "It opens a broad dialogue on gender identity --more specifically, characteristics of masculinity and how they are perceived in our society. Newport's use of knitting and embroidery, combined with superhero imagery, provides an unexpected surprise [what other kind is there?--CK] that immediately engages the viewer."

The only broad dialogue this opens is series of wide-mouthed yawns. Spiak's buddies have been undermining masculinity for years. See Jon Haddock, for example, who has paintings of himself and his wife in superhero costumes.

This is an old, old story of envy. As a teenager and young adult, I speculate, Newport gazed for long hours upon the pictorial forms of well-formed men, fictional and real, from the Marvel Heroes to the real marvels, whom he collected in sports trading cards. He spread them out on his floor and gazed at them and felt . . . small and inadequate and unable to measure up. (Perhaps, in a household of women, he had few male models and maybe too many earfuls about untrustworthy men.) He studied the heroes, the powerful and competent heroes. For years, apparently.

And then he started poking holes in them with pins and needles. I don't know why, but he did.

And poking and poking and poking, with his long needles, for many years now.

Then he fills the holes, covering up these heroes up with various materials --beads, thread, cloth, ribbons-- transforming them, emasculating them, redefining them, obliterating them. They're gone, the way they were, the way they were supposed to be. They're his now. He's safe. It's all about you, Mark.

And he hasn't stopped. He created beaded sports trading cards back in the early 1990s, and now he's graduated, so to speak, to entire knitted jumpsuits, which are just tightened-up holes held together by knotted geometry. Holes helpless against any sharp steel.

They offer no practical protection whatsoever. So why does he go on about protection? I could say:

Because he wants to undermine and ultimately destroy the notions of protection, masculinity, femininity, integrity, courage, human dignity, and all the other components that distinguish us from the knuckle-draggers and sycophants.

Maybe --at the beginning, and maybe these motives still apply, but they're secondary now, part of the package. You see, his voodoo worked, and he worked his gimmick --the high-touch, labor-intensive, feminine craft, pop culture mash-up-- through school and college and graduate school. So now I don't think his motivation even rises to that level of sophistication. It's stupider and uglier than that.

It's all about his career. Nothing more. No world exists outside of that orbit. It's either that, or, in wartime, he wants to suffocate courage with his stinky blankie. Either way, I can't let either get by without comment.

Newport says,

"Turning the superhero inside out is a way for me to present an understanding of masculinity . . . Superheroes suggest strength, but knitting them or covering them with embroidery provides a softness that is contradictory to their image."

And? So? Just because you begin a thought, Mark, doesn't mean you have followed through. And he just betrayed his shallowness. I haven't picked up a comic book in forty years, I think the first Batman movie was the only Batman movie, so I'm no expert; but I can say that superheroes do not suggest strength, they embody it. And that many of them are no strangers to softness, heartbreak, conflict, or fear. They have no problem acknowledging weakness. That's what makes them interesting, and not just seamless robots. It's a continuum, not a contradiction. People are complicated, and even one-dimensional comics can communicate that fact.

But Mark Newport doesn't want to go there --too complex. It's got to be simple --hard / soft-- because he's got the soft part covered, doncha see, so to speak. Like Spiak, he thinks he's making some kind of strong social comment, as if the definitions of masculinity (especially in art) haven't been a dynamic topic in the social conversation for fifty years. We even have room for metrosexuals now, a category fit for Newport and Spiak.

[I pity both of these two young fathers' children. Or perhaps they already have the little t-shirts that say, "It's all about me."]

Even I can predict some of Newport's next "career" moves. (But if he dares to poke holes in Pat Tillman, I hope someone will tie a knot in his nose.) Like Beverly McIver with her various painted racist faces, like Heidi Hesse with her gumball Humvee and comfortable anti-American shtick, these academics or institutional artists are as safe and coddled as little puppies. The world and its roiling is just material for their advancement and comfort. They keep reality at a distance, and insult our pain in the process.

Or maybe I'm wrong, and Mark Newport just wants to help us, people, help us all understand more about what it means to be a man in the new millennium. But despite Spiak's big promise of a broad dialogue, Newport has very little to say about what kind of man we need to face the future. Instead,

"I've been making work related to gender issues for fifteen years or more, and a lot of that has to do with my background," says Newport. "When I said I wanted to pursue art, my family encouraged me, and it didn't matter if it was painting, sculpting, crafts, or if it was supposed to be a boy or girl craft."

More fluff. "Work related to gender issues." The guy sewed and knitted, but not in order to explore gender issues. It's his talent, but of course he needs to tuck this theoretical dickey into his wardrobe.

And he has nothing to offer the man of the future except an adult-baby jumpsuit.

I'll pass.

[Update: Catherine reminds me that when it comes to standing up and facing reality, the 11-year-old babysitter she used to be, not to mention the single mother she became, could kick both Spiak's and Newport's asses with both hands tied behind her back. I concur.]

Thumb In The Eye: The Problem Of The Drawing Center At The WTC

by Jerome du Bois

Imagine that the Pearl Harbor Memorial to the USS Arizona had an art gallery inside which had nothing to do with the Memorial. The rotating shows presented in the gallery would routinely be completely irrelevant to WWII or the surprise attack on December 7, 1941. Animation gels from Disney, Marsden Hartley, Rauschenberg, Martin Mull, Elizabeth Peyton, whoever. But what if the gallerists decided to show Japanese ink drawings of the wartime Imperial period? Or Japanese soldiers' sketches of the same time period? Who would object?

It is my contention that the motivation of those people behind getting the Drawing Center smack dab in the center of the 9/11 Memorial complex at the WTC site is to trivialize that nation-shaking, world-colliding day as soon and for as long as possible. (Read the DC's pdf about their programs and plans for the new site, from Google. There is no mention of 9/11.) They want to make it all so ho-hum. They want 9/11 to take a back seat to art, of all things. Art! To make it so that visitors will come to the WTC for the venues like the Drawing Center and the International Freedom Center (how ill-named can an institution be?), and that morose thing next door --haunted by the 3,000 innocent dead-- will fade into insignificance, like some forgotten statue.

But it won't happen. For many, anyway. The horror, for those who stand there in the Memorial and think, and look, the horror will not fade. For some it may, but not for most, if we can continue to see it as it was. Still, the fools who somehow secured this corner of our pain hope for our amnesia, no matter their protestations otherwise.

Consider the possibilities at the Center:

Ignore 9/11.

Attack 9/11.

Pay tribute to 9/11.

Though only the last would ever be proper, it would end up being lugubrious; they're all losing propositions. The only justification for the Drawing Center's existence is to trivialize 9/11/01. What is a little twee art engine doing there in the first place? The Memorial should have been the only institution at the site. Any addition is a subtraction from the solemnity. It's hallowed ground: they died there. You want to lay your loopy-doopy vinyl-tape installation all over those nice new hardwood floors, while deep underground and all around the restless dead are shaking their heads? Yeah, too many of you do. That's the problem, it's no problem.

Let's consider the options.

Option 1: Ignore 9/11. Mount all kinds of shows --William Pope L. drawing with peanut butter and tubes of newspaper, Art Spiegelman filling the walls with trembling figures like R. Crumb's fancy brother, Leonardo Drew flooding the floor with popsicle sticks collected from around three boroughs, Will Cotton painting the walls with confectionary sugar . . . whatever. It's whistling past the graveyard, spitting on our shoes, and pissing on our graves.

No art is stronger than reality. Put down your brushes, your pencils, your hammer, your video camera; behold reality and tremble and try to be strong. Art these days is a shield of tissue, a selfish illusion. In a time of war, when we're all under the sword of Damocles, this five-sided joker --contemporary art-- wants to share the stage with warriors and engineers and policy analysts, with those who report the truth under fire, with those who stand on a wall for us all, with the wartime dead, and with the innocent dead of 9/11. And all the time he wants to tell us the secrets of his navel. We should not let this joker take the stage.

The secret anger and envy of many artists post-9/11 is that the veil was ripped down the center of their stumpy temple, exposing these pomo poseurs as the naked mole rats they are. While serious people grapple with our precarious future, these wankers wallow in their psychological coprophagy.

Option 3 --let's take the last one second: Pay tribute to 9/11. But this exposes the weakness of art. How does one encompass an event of this magnitude? Tumbling Woman? I think not. How can it be reduced? It shouldn't be, that's our answer. It should not have any artistic interpretation. It should be presented as is, on a scale of 1:1. How? Here's a suggestion.

Take the square footage of the Drawing Center and clear out everything but the load-bearing walls. Then go collect all available physical remnants of the impacts and collapses which a human can comfortably carry --say fifty pounds maximum-- and assemble them in that space on the floors in neat rows and on shelves on all the walls. Cell phones, twisted metal conduits, briefcases, lots and lots of clocks, melted rolodexes, congealed file drawers, thermostats, computers, monitors, printers, purses, watches, perfume bottles, framed desk photos, unidentifiable combinations of matter . . . Thousands of them, everywhere you look, an organized disaster site, and completely unambivalent: This horror happened, it says. Could any art approach such a display? Should it? Should it ever? Maybe in a hundred years, but to bring it down to triviality in five? No. No. No.

[Another suggestion, which if it hasn't already been done would surprise me: get Christian Marclay, or someone like him, to archive every appearance of the Twin Towers in any film, ever --except the last exposures, of that day-- and splice them together in his inimitable way.]

Finally, Option 2: Attack 9/11. And here's where it really gets ludicrous. New York Governor Pataki announced yesterday that it will simply not be allowed. He doesn't seem to realize that every other artist out there bloviates about "site-specific installations," so anyone in the know will know all the America-hating artists, such as Richard Serra, who will want to "respond to the site," giving them the excuse they need to attack the United States. Who is going to babysit the Drawing Center curators to make sure they don't allow artists to violate Pataki's rules? After all, their most recent statement refers to the "inevitable tensions" between "remembrance and cultural activity." Remembrance is one of the most profound and mysterious of cultural activities, since it triggers thoughts of transcendence, death, and the obligation to go on, to do good, to try to figure out why the dead died, and to make sure these innocents did not die in vain.

Yet these Drawing Center people, as good pomo sociopaths, wish to privilege the second-hand scrapings, noodlings, and ruminations of living, mostly New York, artists over the reverberating chasm of pain which many Americans from coast to coast, including we two, carry around with us every day.

Art used to help heal. Artists used to care about the future. These days art is almost always salt in the wounds, so let me stick my thumb in your eye, Contemporary Art. Go fuck yourself.

Go away until you can do us some good.

[Update: Jeff Jarvis argues, as we do, that the IFC and the DC should be moved offsite. And readers can sign a petition here, at TakeBackThe Memorial.com.]

A Note About The Nobodies

by Jerome du Bois

We recently wrote about how, in our opinion, the downtown Phoenix art scene was being victimized and stifled by inferior cultural leaders, some of whom we named. (See the Pride of Phoenix Series sidebar.)

Well, we got blasted with a series of nasty comments full of personal attacks, and a blizzard of scattergun resends, and finally threats to take over the site and shut us down if we didn't take down the posts they objected to. Skeery. Very skeery. So I got sick of it, especially since one or more of these Mals, these nanophoenicians, these nobodies, tried to get our phone number and address out to everybody. There are some very unbalanced people out there, and these assholes want to bring them to our door. Think, for a moment, about the kind of heart that harbors that desire.

I shut down the comments. Now everything these nanobodies yapped about is gone from public view, except what I choose to share of their stinkiness. Arrogant jerks tried to tell me stop eliminating their filthy fisking and waaaay-off-topic foamings.

Since I shut down comments, we have received a nice, supportive email from a member of the downtown Phoenix art scene, complimenting us on the Amy Silverman profile and Our Grand (Avenue) Vision --The Spoke. Thanks. I am not going to name this person, because I am afraid they would be the butt of verbal and even physical abuse.

Is that unfair? You haven't read some of the comments I received toward the end of this ugly affair. The person or persons makes demands, fulminates, strings out insults, and makes grandiose claims ("When shall I take over your site?" As for me, I'm no internet ninja; I got no kung-fu; I'm just a blogger.).

Since I shut down comments, the nobodies have fallen silent, probably thinking that they have silenced us on this subject of Phoenix and downtown art. Well, we will continue to champion Phoenix over some of its representatives, cultural and otherwise, and they will remain legitimate targets of criticism. We want a better city. They want the status quo. You can keep the art so far, thanks. There's more to this city than some silly painters constantly whining for public money.

One final point about the nobodies, and, since they stay anonymous, I have no idea if they speak for the Phoenix art scene, or are trying to monkey-wrench discussion for reasons of their own. So I certainly do not claim that they speak for the Phoenix art scene in any way. But this is the only voice (which is common to these commenters) that we've heard. That voice at the end of those comments --grandiose, megalomaniacal, insistent, tireless, irrational. I've heard that voice before: it sounds like tweak.

I hope I'm wrong. Phoenix deserves better.

In the meantime, we decide which posts stay up and which posts come down.

CODA: This just occurred to me. I feel it's relevant. A Joke. Once upon a time, there was a person of limited intelligence; these days, the least-offensive and simplest description is a simpleton. Anyway, this simp worked in a Cadillac factory for twenty-five years, until he retired and got his dream: his own 1967 Cadillac, fins out to here, cream metalflake like a moving cloud, purrs like a dream. He's driving down the highway, enjoying his retirement, just tooling along, when for some reason he annoys a big-rig driver, who forces him off the road.

The driver confronts the simpleton, who can only muster an innocent grin.

"You tryna stall me down, drive me off the road, make me miss my connection?" the truck driver taunts.

"My new Cadillac!" the simpleton responds.

"Oh, yeah?" growls the truck driver, taking his slow measure. "Come here." And he takes a tire iron and draws a large circe behind the Cadillac. "Now get in the circle and stay there until I tell you to come out."

"Okay, Cap," says the simpleton, stepping into the circle. And the truck driver goes to demolishing the Caddy: jamming the tire iron into the tires, deflating them all; bending the great fins and blinding the taillights; smashing all the windows and mirrors, denting all the fenders and doors, smashing the headlights, turning the aerial into a coat hanger, slashing the seats, and then huffing and puffing back to the simpleton in the circle, who stood tall with a big grin on his face.

"What are you grinning about?" wheezed the truck driver.

The simpleton answered: "When you weren't looking, smartypants, I stepped out of the circle --twice!"

THE CATHERINE KING I'M NOT

by Catherine King

If you don't think Jerome is very gregarious, well, I'm a whole lot less.

I'm not into dialoging, comment threads, and I do not tolerate the anonymous for even one moment. I don't get dazzled by the brilliant wit of nobodies. I won't even listen to anyone without a name. It has always been this way for me with the blogging.

(For example: Back in the days when we were still hooked on art, I'm sure Jerome got tired of my constant whining about how art blogger extraordinaire Franklin Einspruch would seriously entertain the bloviations of monikers such as oldpro, catfish, blah, blah, blah.)

Never for one minute of my blogging experience have I seen my way clear to converse with anonymous cowards. And I never could understand why anybody would give anonymous the time of day. Never have, never will.

So I rarely (never) bother to look at our comments on the Tears of Things. I've noticed that almost all the local yokels prefer to cower in the shadows, balls/ovaries notwithstanding. Ms./Mr. Nobody can bellow all they want. They wouldn't have a chance even if they stepped up to the plate (as did Amy Young).

However Jerome has called my attention to a bit of housekeeping to which I must attend. Once again, I find myself compelled to take out the trash.

Jerome has written before about the value and practical necessity of blogging as a way to manage one's personal profile (see Everybody Blog). Of course, he's right. Anyway, I paid attention, and now I must apply the principle and manage my electronic profile. . .

Some anonymous (of course; SO BORING) nanophoenician is trying to spread the word out there that Catherine King of The Tears of Things is Catherine King the child murderer.

Not so. I am not Catherine King the child murderer. Doesn't fit my personality profile. I was going to tell you more about the Catherine King I am, but I changed my mind. All you need to know is that I'm not the baby killer, but I am the Catherine King who committed radical acts of freedom and self-preservation.

That would be me. I have committed acts of freedom and self-preservation way out of the ordinary, so if you hear such rumors, that would probably be me. The nanophoenician isn't such a good cyberinvestigator, I think.

A Note From A Member of The League of Anonymous Writers

by Jerome du Bois

I'm going to take care of one last anonymous comment, about Writers' Bloc, writing, and risk, which has been blocked since I closed comments the other day. The original comment and my fisking is here.

When Catherine read this latest one she said, "Why bother fisking it? Why not just say:

'You're just mad because the blogosphere doesn't care who your rich daddy is.'"

I don't know who this commenter is, but that sounds right on. The whole tone, beyond the boring syntax and total lack of humor (hence my Zombie digs), and despite all the repetition of the word "risk," is smug, complacent, and entitled. For example:

Living 53 [sic; it's 55] years is about as meaningful as having babies; folks do it every day. Nothing new there.

She left out the part about the seven hells. Oh, yes, I think it's a she, I even think I know who it is, but Blog forbid I say anything. You see how wankers get to weasel around? I could say so much more if I knew this woman's identity; of course, that's why they stay shy. They can read what happens when I know their names.

Reread the sentences in italics. Sounds like someone who's never been hit, never slept in an alley, never been broke, never been jobless, never been without wheels, and never been more than one phone call away from lawyers, a warm bed, and money. As if 55 years ground out in South or West Phoenix --or Washington, DC, or East LA-- is identical to the same sailing 55 in Paradise Valley or North Scottsdale or Carefree.

One of the marks of a sociopath is this: Life is as meaningless as death. Sounds heavy, I know, but I do believe having babies is a very meaningful life course, new or not. The commenter is so damned flippant. And all lives are not lived out the same, and living any length of time against adversity is something to be proud of, something meaningful, something to stand by and for; that's so obvious that having to point it out reflects badly on the commenter's intelligence.

There's more.

The comment begins:

J & C,

Notes on your frisking . . . that's also spelled correctly.

"Frisking . . ." No. That implies touching; yech, no thanks. Or maybe it's her way of getting "risk" in there yet again.

Of course I have a "you" for reference; I'm one of a league of anonymous writers to your site.

Baloney; if only. Hardly anybody writes to us. There may be a league of anonymous readers to our site, or seven leagues for all we know; but very few writers, though we invite civilized discourse.

One member of Writers' Bloc, Amy Young, always signs her name, so we're pretty confident this present commenter isn't her. We don't admire her work, but she steps up and steps out, and we give credit where credit is due. You're not in her league, Anonymo.

Is there a reason why you don't list your personal email address?

It's kinganddubois@cox.net.

Or your mailing address? Or your address at your domain name? Perhaps because you wish some privacy?

Yes.

For that same reason, I'll use the anonymous route. Certainly, I don't resort to name-calling, but I'll stay this way, thanks, and you're welcome to continue to censure me.

Thanks. I will. What you call "name-calling" in many instances is just passing judgments, demanding accountability, calling for high standards. And anonymity is baloney. You're just scared. And if you mean name-calling, cite some examples, please, such as wanker, stupid, and Zombie.

Living 53 years is about as meaningful as having babies; folks do it every day. Nothing new there.

You spend time writing, you can afford to. But you don't risk anything by that. Does it take you away from the process of making a living?

No. And how does risk get in here? Instead of writing, am I supposed to be out playing in traffic? Training pit bulls? Catching javelins? Am I supposed to be suffering in some way? What the hell is the matter with having free time to write, loving it, and doing it? You just resent it, and most of all our freedom to say what we want without a gatekeeper --like you, maybe.

Regarding editors and such, that's not my point.

This is a dodge. You're an editor, I'm going to guess, or have been one in the past, or hang out with them.

You self-publish on the net. It's cheaper than dirt.

Really? My monthly internet nut is almost as much the members spend every month to hang out at the Writers' Bloc house. (I don't know how much dirt costs, by the way; maybe you're more familiar with dirt than I am.)

No risk in that. Now if you paid for the dead tree process and risked whether you'd sell them or not, that's risk. Especially if it made any financial risk.

The Risk. The Risk. The All-Important Risk. Now I know you're at the editorial/publishing end of the dead-tree process here. A writer submits his story to a magazine, absorbing the opportunity costs lost. But only in vanity publications does the writer submit a fee as well. It's the publisher who takes the financial risk, as usual. The editor makes an aesthetic judgment, and risks her reputation and her job. Again, as usual. Meanwhile, the writer does whatever he does, taking risks elsewhere, perhaps.

All the people you want to frisk have actually risked their finances, futures, time away from work that brings in an income. This is your personal hobby, and as a hobbyist you risk nothing.

Rave On.

It's Blog On, okay? Get it right.

I don't know all the people that you didn't mention. I mean the ten members of Writers' Bloc. How do I know any one of them risked any of those things you do mention? Esser, Dach, Silverman, Young, Susser; they're all doing fine, sitting pretty. And how do you know that we don't risk those things every day we live?

You want to talk about hobbies? How about having the free time and money to get out of the house and go down to a Clubhouse and pretend to be a writer with other writers? So far, nothing has issued from Writers' Bloc for the wider world. Nothing in six months.

But I have an idea, Ms. Riskydeadtree. A zine! A real one, made of precious paper. Don't tell me, you're working on it already. Well, if you're not, there's this wonderfully inspiring piece on Style.com that features over a dozen just rilly neat zines. Handstitching! Found material! Mail-in art! What's old is new again!

And, best of all, they imply that blogs are so yesterday.

You'll love it.

UPDATE / CODA: Blogs versus Zines.

Compare and contrast, the oldest school exercise.

[I point these obvious differences out only while we're waiting for the ultimate media vehicle --setless television, or maybe the morphing newspapers of Minority Report.]

A zine is short, small, limited in time and space, bound by physical front and back covers, and bound by one-dimensional print limitations (e.g., no streaming video). If one refers to someone else's work, one cites it, but that's a far as it can go. The reader must wait a fixed amount of time before the next issue appears, either in the mailbox or at the newsstand or bookstore. If anything comes up relevant in the meantime --say, a newly discovered alt-indy musician who knits-- the zine has to wait until the next cycle. Letters to the editor take a lot of time. Meanwhile, they'll get scooped by knittingmusicians.org, if there is such a thang. A zine is, I conclude, a fetish object, a collectible, much more of a vanity project than a blog; it is a limited-edition talisman one passes around among the initiated. (On the high end, think Parkett, or, before it folded, nest. I don't know about the low end.) Rather quaint in a disposable culture. We don't archive our magazines, for example; we cut out what we want and recycle the rest. It's paper, not gold.

A blog is as physical as a computer, I say, not some ephemeral thing, since the computer (and all the physical infrastructure of the internet) creates and supports the blog. But a blog is unlimited in time and space, can be updated continually, can change instantly, has no front or back cover, and nearly every point on the screen can be activated to point to a whole other world. Need I belabor the multimedia capacities, from full-color digital photos, poppable, to podcasting, to videoblogging? Whaddaya you got? Paper. A blog has a free entry to every publicly available web page. Anybody in the world can read the blog without paying for it. The reader doesn't have to wait very long for new stuff. And, if the blog only has one story, post, or entry that day, it doesn't matter. Since the blog is connected to the blogosphere, it's like being connected to millions of pages, just a click away. So each blog is every blog, I say, thicker than ten thousand telephone books, which makes your skinny zine look, well, paper-thin.

Zines are safe. Blogs are risky.

Two Tall Trees

Yesterday, in the early evening of the longest day of the year, the wind was blowing especially strong and steady. As always, whenever it gets windy, I went out into our big back yard to watch the two tall trees in two of our neighbors' yards swing and sway, like two many-armed giants glorifying their hair in that unstoppable energy.

These trees are huge and healthy, one a pecan and one a eucalyptus; I think the eucalyptus must be seventy feet high. Anyway, as usual, my mind stupidly turned the experience into an art video. You know, you could capture all that incredible swaying, and edit it, and project it on three screens with music by --oh, Scriabin or somebody. Or --wait! I know! Tony Oursler-type projections! They would appear and disappear like apparitions! No wait no wait no wait-- remember Bruce Nauman's desire to present an idea directly; just let the trees be who they are, film them for however many hours the wind blows, and then project it onto three screens et cetera. With helpful rolling-wheel office chairs . . . and that's what brought me back.

I've developed this stupid habit over the years of trying to make art out of reality. Even after I decided that reality trumps art big time, the habit persists. So I caught myself, mentally cleared my throat, and looked again.

I thought about all the birds now clinging, huddled, in all their nests and nooks and hidey-holes in those trees; about all the creatures who for thousands of their generations knew these trees as home, or rest stop, or flight marker. About cleansing; sometimes rotten pecan branches crash into our yard. The wind bent the trees in long, slow, swaying rushes, the tallest branches scraping the clouds around, it seemed. I just watched and tried to empty myself of all the anger and frustration and knotted pain of the last few days. People are a trial . . .

Art --and all the pomo concretion that has deadened it --has been a millstone around my neck for long enough. I'm sawing it off, but it takes time, so I go out when it's windy and watch the swaying trees, and try to empty my mind, and wait . . . for what? For the message. There's always a message. And after a few minutes of leaning back entranced in that giant green-and-gray hula, it came to me, in one of the earliest songs George Jones ever wrote (with Roger Miller) and sang:

If it's lovin' you want, I've got it,
and if it's money you need, I'll go and get it.

I'll buy you tall tall trees
and all the waters in the seas
cuz I'm a fool fool fool for you.

Tall tall trees and all the waters in the seas! What innocent bravado! What bootheeled heart! So I start to sing it. "I'm a fooool, for you, it may take a while but you know it's true . . ."

But then I turn from the trees and the wind, and there's my darling Catherine, smiling, and she twines her arm in mine, and we watch the two strong tall trees swaying in the wind.

These are the two trees I'm talking about.

The Zombie's Heart

by Jerome du Bois

I'll call him Mal, which stands for both amalgam and malevolent. Amalgam because there's more than one, each anonymous, and malevolent because they enjoy bayoneting the wounded.

When this latest and last local art brouhaha began, we were inundated with vile and bullying comments. Well, the damn discussion was going nowhere, and so I posted our modest Grand vision and was getting ready to move on --when I received another comment which claimed that my wife was the same Christian Scientist woman who allowed her own daughter to die back in the Eighties.

It's false, of course, and the facts are easy to check. But it was very important to Mal that my wife be the CS woman, so he has been sending this accusatory comment to every post that's been open. So I'm closing them all, since Mal includes a phone number and address with it. How helpful that he wants hell brought to our ears and our very door. What a nice man. Oh, yes, most of these people, and the main Mals, are probably men.

And then it struck me that Mal had this information at the beginning of the whole comment thread, passed it on to others --and then began a whole flurry of disgusting fisking, including sexual slander about Catherine and I. In other words, whether they believed the CS story or not, they wanted to --and that didn't stop them from piling on and trying to hurt her, and me, even more. And when we objected, they just sneered back that we if we couldn't take it we were weaklings. Yeah, yeah, yeah --this from faceless ambushers. Well, we're not weak, we'll keep on blogging about more important things than Phoenix art, and all the Mals can fold it six ways and put it where the sun don't shine.

I think I know who the main Mal is. If I'm right --Phoenix, you've got what you asked for. With him around, Phoenix will remain a drone among cities.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with Theo van Gogh. We're working on a new screenplay together. I've found that the innocent dead are so much human than many of the living, and the zombies who pretend to be.

CROWD OF WITNESSES

by Catherine King

This was supposed to be a series of big embedded images, but I'm having trouble with cropping and scaling so I can't show you the riveting orb images I captured outside just now.

You may have noticed that I capture then immediately post my orb images these days. The spontaneity helps me to feel closer to my collaborators.

I'm really happy with the way the Enchanted series is coming along. The actual title is Enchanted by Day/Haunted by Night.

I don't know how long the series will get to be-- I can go up to 99 images-- before I begin to examine another aspect of spirit photography. I might bring the camera back inside and do interiors again, like I did in the Haunted Apartment.

The orbs are out there alright, so I'm sure they must be inside here as well. Bricks and glass wouldn't keep them out. Yes, I'm sure that Jerome and I are living in a haunted house.

But all this has implications for you. This may be our house, but that's your outside that we share with you, and as you can see from the beginning of my ENCHANTED series, there are plenty of orbs all over.

I don't think I have any more spirit photography up on the internet at this time. I used to have lots and lots up, took it down, put more up, took that down. Nobody, except Glen Lineberry, ever seemed interested. (Lisa Greve let Glen Lineberry do all the talking when Jerome and I went to the Bentley Projects meetings to discuss our American Gothic exhibition. I assumed she was interested because he was interested, though Lisa Greve basically just sat there saying nothing).

Anyway, at this point, I don't want to hear from anybody about orbs, spirit photography, or anything else, and it looks like we're going to be keeping the comments shut down for quite some time.

But I'll leave you with this thought. . . those aren't just my orbs out there. That is the future of humanity you're looking at when you look at one of my spirit photographs. The sure knowledge of your impending death should motivate you to live a better life. Death is such a sad place. You may choose to be a wanker in this life, but you'll regret it for eternity, wanker.

You Win Again, Wankers

by Jerome du Bois

We should never have touched on Phoenix art again.

I was wrong to think that anotherphoenician was Kimber Lanning.

I apologize for that, but for nothing else I've said about her or her operations. She's still a lousy role model for Phoenix in damned near every way.

What changed my mind? The undeniable stink of testosterone.

There's a malevolent man out there who hates Catherine and I, it now appears.

And now I know why.

Because we love each other more than anything, and it shows. Well, he can choke on it until he turns purple and strangles himself to death, for all I care.

I mean it.

For the last six days this subhuman has sent us fifty-eight comments to this blog, using 17 different IP addresses. Most of these are resends of his fiskings of our postings. I'll let somebody else do the math on those nose-pickings. He harasses us about misidentifying him as Lanning, but he has become increasingly stinky, and threatening to take over our site. If he can, he can. Fuck it. Go ahead and do it, asshole, or drop your idle threats. Do it. We'll retire and go travelling until the internet can handle shitbirds like you; because if it can't now, I don't want to be part of it anymore.

And now, since there are so many cowards out there, I got the straw that broke the camel's back --again. I hate it that we care. I don't know who sent it, maybe this worthless turd, maybe some other one. Guess what moniker they used?

anonphoenician@hotmail.com

Fucking cowards, every single one of them.

These local sonsofbitches always seem to go after Catherine. I should know better. Now this anonidiot posts a comment about a Christian Scientist Catherine King who, along with her husband, killed their daughter. The jerk helpfully includes a little news story and wonders, luridly, if this was the cause of her PTSD.

You fucking idiots. You've got the wrong Catherine King.

Clear it up any? But I know you're disappointed. And now, as I've been writing, the dumbass --yeah, it's him-- sends another comment, only now violating our privacy by including our phone number.

Look, Phoenix, this is someone who is defending your arts community, setting us up now for harassment. Hope you are proud this spokesman, because you can have him.

Oh, and thanks, all the rest of you, for your support. What a pissant town.

I think it's time I turned my attention to gentler subjects, such as the Iranian slander of kidnapping Palestian children's eyeballs for the benefit of Israelis.

You zombies ate too much of my flesh.

Signs of Inferiority, Plus A Grand (Avenue) Vision

by Jerome du Bois, with Catherine King

The human calling him/herself anotherphoenician posted a new ad hominem comment on the piece I wrote about her/him, which of course I deleted because it also contained personal insults and sexual slander. (I won't edit comments. Stay in the lines or you're out.) For some reason, she/he cannot resist talking about such irrelevancies; it's a sixth-grade level obsession. He/she also tries to irritate us by calling us "Jerry" and "Cathy." Whoa, we got the alloverfidgets on that one. Naturally, this person can set the record "straight" by emailing a copy to all his/her friends. Fine. But I won't have that crap here.

Let's recap the discussion we were trying to have before this narcissist crashed in. Amy Silverman wrote an article claiming that Phoenix has an inferiority complex. We disagreed, and counter-argued that Phoenix's cultural leaders, such as Beatrice Moore and Kimber Lanning, because of their own insecurity and need for control, have encouraged a dependency on them, and on city and state money. This behavior and this policy drive away or stifle talent, foster financial laziness, increase their already-overdeveloped sense of entitlement, and create coteries of sycophants who just want to please.

But the response, as usual when we enter this fray, refers not at all to the subject, but insults about our mental stability (that old chestnut), how we think we're all that because we dress well, and how we're bitter because we couldn't make it in this town as artists. Sprinkled with general claims like "Kimber Lanning has done more for this city than you ever will"-- but they always trot out only that one lonely, skanky example: modified arts. Oh, yeah, long may that freak flag fly.

anotherphoenician followed this script to the letter, but does manage to drop a few gems I'd like to examine. But first let me clear up a couple of misconceptions.

I don't care if this person ever identifies him/herself. Period.

About our professional failure: we've published the whole story, which is strung out along the blog for two years. Read it yourself, if you're interested and if you can find it all. We're relieved to not be part of the Phoenix art scene, or any art scene, anymore, and have no wish to participate in them. Period.

The way we dress . . . Sheesh. The deleted comment went on and on about it. This person does not want us to think or feel anything good about ourselves. We cannot brag or stand tall or stand apart. No matter what we say, we're out of date or not in any men's fashion mags or yada yada yada. Anything we try to lift up, she/he tears and tears away at. We cannot look good. Why? Or, to use a line we get a lot from the wimpies out there: Why so angry? As I recall, in this person's first comment, he/she, in a totally unsolicited manner, mentioned our "nice clothes." A belated thanks, wanker. (I'll get back to fashion later in this post.)

This person has zero sense of humor. I wrote a line saying I didn't care if he/she was a "one-legged transgendered Pakistani pole vaulter," and he/she comes back with:

What would it matter if I was transgendered?

Anybody besides me find that hilarious? Maybe it's a clue, too. This person seems gender-obsessed. I don't care. We just think she's Kimber Lanning, that's all. If Kimber Lanning was a man --but we're not going there!-- we'd be hoisting his petard in the proper manner. Gender, schmender, gay, straight, no matter to us. We hate stupidity and evil and bigotry, not what people do in bed or which way they dress their genitalia.

Then he/she says something about modified, which is finally on-topic:

Kimber has done more for this town than you could ever do. Modified brings many muscians to town that would not otherwise come here. Modified provides a alcohol free venue that underage teens can go and enjoy themselves. But I'm sure you are against teens enjoying themselves.

Not at all. But the scene down there is just Kimber Lanning's little engine; it put-puts away, and keeps her in business, and allows spoiled young people to feel edgy, but it sends no inspiring ripples out into the larger culture. It's middle-class young people indulging in a new rite of passage; instead of travelling to Europe, they form a garage band, or some progrock derivative, and tour the country on daddy's plastic. They put out demo cds, and when you read their professional biographies, they're all former members of something: Mocket, Sprocket, Wocket, Spawnic Youth . . . It's not a bad circuit, and it's fairly harmless. (I'd be double-checking that "alcohol-free" schtick, though.) I don't care what they do. It just doesn't mean much in the larger scheme of Phoenix's cultural development. Besides, I think when ASU downtown comes as into its own, modified's alt-noodlings will be wiped out by music venues that mimic the Tempe ones. In the meantime, I consider modified more a blood clot than a heartbeat.

In the last post I included a long list of dysfunctions and syndromes. I'll reprint it here, because it I really want to repeat the last line:

Catherine wrestles with a condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is the only mental illness caused by other people. Some people suffer from clinical depression. Some people have conditions like OCD and mania and fetishistic infantilism --all recognized mental illnesses, syndromes, or conditions. Some people dress up like superheroes. Some people make so-called art from their urine. Some people are addicted to tattoos. Some people believe in teleportation and telepathy and alien beings. Some people are Adult Clowns; they paint the face in black, in white, in blue. Some people snort too much white powder, or live a lurching existence of eat-and-purge. Some people think our President is in league with The Devil. Others would describe these people, at least tentatively, as mentally ill, but I've just described a significant number of the downtown Phoenix art population, so why can't you sonsofbitches keep your fucking hypocrisy away from Catherine's pain!

anotherphoenician responds:

Consider that it may be a dysfunction if someone is fashionably challenged, but you have to spew about it here.

Unless this is a joke --which I doubt; see above-- this person is saying that bad fashion sense might be a borderline mental illness, and to insult it is tantamount to insulting someone with, say, Downs' Syndrome.

Hoot city. This is rich. Being "fashionably challenged" translates to just laziness, and any woman knows it, and this person going out of his/her way to mention something so farfetched . . . well, draw your own conclusions, reader.

This person does mention another relevant topic --signs:

Some gallery owners downtown are financially challenged but you skewer them for the look of their buildings or the cost of their signs.

If one looks through pictorial histories of businesses, one encounters thousands of images of proud owners photographed hoisting their first sign; or group shots of the whole company beneath a great big new beautiful sign. It's about pride. It's about not making any excuses. It's about really doing your best.

This isn't anybody's best, it's stenchworthy:

And then there's this Beatrice Moore slap-in-the-face:

(And if one considers the uncertain face of the new Paisley Violin, one thinks, "What's this? Rusty Muffler Shop?" [the "'s" fell off long ago])

And the city is giving out more money to many of these people.

Consider the whine in the above comment: I'm poor, so you have to give me a pass because I'm a lazy slob, too. If you're financially challenged, don't open the fooking gallery. See, these people have been pumping the funky for far too long. They like it that way because then they don't have to do much work. This is the 21st Century, and sneaking your pally down the alley past the supine drunks to the bare bulb crackling at the end, with its black door leading to degrading disappointment --those days are over, pete.

It's long past time for clean, well-lighted places. Proud and upscale. Retardaires like Steve Gompf can shudder about yuppification, but look at what they have now: skuzz city.

All the venues should be well-advertised ones, including their signage. Catherine and I often discuss the blight of the Big Diagonal, which has so much unfulfilled promise. And when life hands us stinkies like anotherphoenician, we see how can turn their twisted vituperation to better purposes --such as, hopefully, the last three posts. We don't want to fight anybody. We want to talk about making the city better for art, artists, artisans, and citizens.

Now, pretty soon a lot of these downtown artists will share a $500,000 grant from the city to improve their storefronts. We don't think it will make much difference, and the reason is as plain as when you're standing in the middle of Grand Avenue: it's Skankytown: the sidewalks, the lighting, the poorly-tended trees, the blasted lack of any hope in the very dust before the exhausted storefronts.

This is the vibe that everybody is celebrating down there, as written by Amy Young in the now-defunct shade magazine:

As I open the door to leave the gallery and bookstore that I operate with my partner on the corner of Grand and 15th Avenues [Perihelion Arts], I never quite know what may be in store for me. From having to roll out a breathing but immobile body from beneath the car to bumping into one of the local artistic geniuses to reminiscing with an old-timer about neighborhood history or to just being in awe of the agility of the teens racing in the alley behind the long standing Rodriguez Boxing Club just across the street as they gear up to go inside and take it to the ring, I always experience a wealth of emotions. I inhale it all in and maintain the general conclusion, as I release my breath, that I absolutely love my neighborhood. And that’s often all before I even have a chance to close the door behind me.

She loves the smell of stale male urine in the morning. It smells like --her life.

Anyway, Catherine and I have been having conversations about downtown improvement for over a year, usually stimulated by our frequent but irregular drive-bys of the area, and the subsequent teeth-grinding, moaning, and exclaiming, the wasted potential! being the constant theme.

So when Catherine read Mr./Ms. Poormouth's whine above, she really went into high gear and together we cobbled together this vision, and it is a grand vision, though just a beginning of what seems obviously needed:

Next time --and there will be one-- don't give the money to the artists and gallerists. They have had their chances, one after another, and look what you've still got: fly-by-night galleries (Dem No Dere No Mo') and The Bikini Lounge and the StopNLook Window and the Paper Heart, which is halfway to becoming a strip joint. It's time to stop pretending they care about quality down there, and it's time to stop handling the whole notion piecemeal, and it's time to stop handing over money to self-centered losers.

Take it to the street. Put the money on the Avenue, into the Avenue, instead. No more money for the gallerists and landlords.

Make the street beautiful, and force the gallerists to live up to the street --and fine them in incremental steps to drive them out if they don't go along.

To begin with, create another Special District --here's a name: Special Structural Improvement District --for The Spoke, which would consist of the Grand Avenue Diagonal from 7th Avenue to 15th Ave, and one lot deep on both sides. Those are the boundaries. Why so small? One reason: close financial control, but also because the improvement is restricted to public improvement: the streets, sidewalks, sidestreet curbs, public lighting, shading --but not storefronts or facades or any private property --with one exception: signage.

Another reason is to be able to legally renegotiate all contracts and leases with the city's leaseholders and property owners in that District, so that the landlord-gallerists are put on legal notice of their new obligations.

For the whole project, think permanent beauty. Hire local metal sculptors, neon artists, industrial glass people, lightbox technicians, custom masons, and tile people, even some auto body workers who know metal better than some artists. Some of them are right there on the Avenue, or close by. Think Chris Duran and his crew, and Pete Deise and his, and Corey Paisley, and those they would recommend (as long as they're all legal, of course; that's crucial). We don't endorse these people; they're just examples.

They need to make planters and awnings and light-pole extensions and benches and fountains and brickwork and grottoes and waterfalls and tree-protectors and so much else. We want to light the Avenue from end-to-end with neon art, sculptures that cool you off, shading that seduces you, benches that relax you, the sounds and sights of water to soothe you. And public art installations (as in Olafur Eliasson) and permanent sculptures (think the Dublin Spike). Laser beams shooting from one end of the Spoke to the other and bouncing back. Anchored dirigibles with videos projected onto them. Truck-mounted video screens parked here and there. Special shuttle buses with rotating themes. Public-input video cams.

[Imagine sitting in a new, improved Paisley Violin. This one has huge clean windows along the front, with a row of bench-like tables which feature chain-mounted binoculars and small telescopes. Why? Because right across the street is the newly-vitalized, actually eye-catching new installation at the StopNLook Gallery, which has got to be under new management. Diners crowd the tables to scope it out and discuss it.]

Give these core artisans exclusive contracts to make hard, permanent signs for the galleries up and down Grand Avenue, with half the funds provided by the gallerists and half by the city. After a very short while, gallerists who don't comply would stand out like red noses, and there would be legal steps in place to force them away. We need to get rid of the tweakers, pretenders, pole dancers, and runaround artists.

The centerpiece: a funicular streetcar-pair to run that single diagonal. One named Liberty, the other named Freedom, the pair simply shuttle back and forth between 7th Ave and 15th Ave --no turnarounds, a controlled speed zone, lighted glass blocks embedded in the street at all stops, and, on both sides, embedded in multicolored stone and tile, visual story after visual story of America and Arizona, all along the Spoke, clearly visible for the riders' contemplation as they roll along. The retail-friendliness of a streetcar should be obvious enough not to need emphasis.

And be clear that this is not an Arts District but an Improvement District: that is, it shall not necessarily welcome or encourage artists over restauranteurs, florists, boutique operators, bakers, confectioners, dry cleaners, cobblers; the Spoke could boast cafes and bookstores and stationers and auto detailers and antique stores and niche grocers and art galleries. And much more.

Of course, it's all a dream. But we imagine that the City Council hearings would bring out every roach who wants to defend the status quo, and that would be an unforgettable object lesson in itself for all involved. I sure would be taking notes.

ÜBERCOOL

Flower Arrangement and Photography by Catherine King.

I liked this one so much I made it bigger than usual. Enjoy.

Another Brave Soul Zombie Heard From

Zombies have one big advantage over us: They don't think.
--George A. Romero

by Jerome du Bois

When we got a comment from "anativephoenician" on the Writers' Bloc post, I felt like the Anasazi had sent me a spiritual gift. For reals! A Native Phoenician! It's a privilege to hear from one.

The originanity --that's spelled correctly-- of these creative class types never ends. The text of the missive follows, with a fisking.

Whether you stand for anything is irrelevant.

And as a result, it's great side-show but valueless.

Pass me my knife and fork.

Whether you stand for anything is irrelevant.

Since you are anonymous, anything you say may be used in irrelevance against you, or something like that. How can you speak of relevance when there's no you for reference?

But that's a chilling statement: for me, Jerome du Bois, or Catherine King, to hear from you, some anonymous, cowardly twit, hiding under an electronic rock somewhere, that whether we stand for anything is irrelevant? My first response: Fuck you, with your khaki shorts on!

We each are fifty-five years old, we've been through the seven hells. NOBODY accuses us of being irrelevant. We have thousands of words right here on the blog, for all the world to see. Our beating hearts, right here. What have you got that is so goddamn RELEVANT, anativephoenician? Well? Where? Don't see anything. And yet you, without an ounce of bone in your spine, have the goddamn gall to write to us about ANYTHING! You are nobody. At least we're King & du Bois.

You don't risk anything. There is absolutely no risk in blogging.

Only our reputations, our good works, our good names, our reasoned arguments, our standards, our writing skills, our broken hearts, our love for our country, our consistency --remember, this is a river, everthing's there-- our patience, our precious time, our money, our stamina, our physical safety, our mental stability. All this is on the line, on the table, all the time. And your stake is . . . where? You got nothing in the pot so far; you haven't even anted up, tiddlywink.

Even writing for free is a risk; you might not get published. Writing for money, especially for income, implies risk.

I risk writing, I write for free, I get published. I do it myself. Oh, you mean dead tree! Let's see. You need someone else, some editor, to vet your writing, put their stamp of approval on it, before it's real. Only then, only when Coagula or Vomit Launch prints your poem on page 64, has anything been risked. That's a rather cramped view of the new publishing world, but a person's no better than their dream, so hang onto it if you want to.

For us, quality will out.

But what you do; your writing, your art, even the way you approached but wouldn't enter downtown galleries, choosing instead to write about the outside of the buildings . . . it's risk-free.

Again with the "risk" thing. This is plain ignorance and lazy research. It's a matter of record on our blog. We went in and out of those galleries every month for years and most of the work was worse than forgettable, it was insulting. And our Pride of Phoenix series was about the facades as signs of commitment. I mean, read the damn thing; the thesis is stated right up front. Look at the photographs. And don't tell me risk-free. Taking those photographs was not risk-free, not for us, not with some of the comedians cranking off down around there.

And as a result, it's great side-show but valueless.

The Arbiter of Value has spoken! And the measuring stick is right . . . here . . . somewhere . . . No, no.

In the meantime, all the Zombies read every word. I don't know why they love to hate us, but our strategy is always to come right back at them under a black flag. So, anativephoenician, go back to the mooning cows and spoiled weenies at Writers' Bloc, and see what you can squeeze out from under that constipated moniker.

ENCHANTED 09

Captured by Catherine King June 19, 2005

Does AnotherPhoenician Have A Superiority Complex?

I'm off to other business, so don't go declaring any false victories in my absence ya kook.
--pseudonymous commenter anotherphoenician, June 16,2005

by Jerome du Bois

It's a lie, that name I've written just above. It's time to confess that our identities here on The Tears of Things have been elaborate ruses for over two years. We are not Jerome du Bois and Catherine King.

I am Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, and my wife is Anna Livia Plurabelle, and we are the Gods of All Rivers. When our falling tears hit the waters, the ripples rise as giant waves, reverberating, rocking, and roiling up many wonders in their finn-again wakes, from the bizarre, to the brazen, to the beautiful.

I feel better already.

And it appears we've sunk the hook deep into one of the creatures we've summoned from somewhere out there. This person, anotherphoenician, chooses to identify himself as a man; we choose to identify her as a woman, and we even made a guess as to her identity. But since nobody stands behind her rants, and since she stays submerged but stubbornly still there, we are free to speculate.

She thinks she's Jaws, maybe, big and strong enough to hijack the comment thread on the post People Love Mediocrity Best and run it out in her direction for her purposes. No. I run this blog. My wife runs this blog. Snip! We cut the line and leave her floundering. You're nobody, anotherphoenician. You have no rights here, but you are one bossy bitch, that's for sure. (Here new readers should check the comment thread for the full background.)

Let me emphasize for the reader: I will continue to refer to this person as she because of this person's claim to be male, without any kind of supporting information. He/she wishes to impose by arbitrary, anonymous will a new gender direction. Amazing thinking. Nope. Won't work, woman. Unbelievable that she would think I'd fold. I won't let it happen. That's just one disadvantage of anonymity, idnit? I'll be noting others below.

It's been fun deleting the increasingly shrill and scatological fiskings and rants anotherphoenician has vomited up on shore. Poking this detritus from a safe distance yields a few glittering bits, such as that precious epigraph above. I'm sure it will become part of our private vocabulary, since we've been laughing about it all day. ("I'm going to Circle K, ya kook. Don't go declaring --" and dissolving in laughter.) I mean --kook, false victories, in my absence-- the hubris of this woman would be sickening if it wasn't so laughable.

And there's more, much more. The overall tone sounds a variation on the Bible-thumper's mantra: "I said it, you damn well better believe it, and that settles it." [With a little foot stamp.] The arrogance --the damned gall-- of the anonymous! Just because this person says he is male, and that therefore I've made a mistake and so my whole post is BS, proves nothing. My claim stands: Kimber "We Built This City On Alt-Indy" Lanning is a cultural brake on the community, even if anotherphoenician turns out to be a one-legged transgendered Pakistani pole vaulter.

And just because this person says he saw us wearing shorts in a nice restaurant (or anywhere) does not make it true. We'd rather orbit Pluto than appear in public that way. Honestly, if anyone approached the people --merchants, retailers, acquaintances, family, passersby-- we see every day, and described us wearing shorts, they'd get something like: "Doesn't sound like them. The guy wears jeans, cowboy boots, long-sleeved shirts, cowboy vests, and neckties --with a collar pin-- in the summer. She wears Lagerfeld vests and Betsey Johnson tops, Gaultier jeans, wicked pointed boots, vintage jewelry, and her hair is dangerously complicated down almost to her waist. No, shorts don't go with those two."

anotherphoenician is lying, or saw a different couple. I say the former.

Her point, of course, is to smear us. No way we give that the go-by. Fashion is important to us, because it's about standards and discrimination, and profile and style, and confidence and being unique --everything the downtown crew is terrified of because they wouldn't know the first thing about those characteristics I just listed. We're not going to allow someone who probably shops at Lerner's to defame our inimitable style.

Because we love and nourish and talk about our style--

Because Catherine defines, refines, and redefines her own style, beauty grows from her busy, damaged hands like a rainbow on the loose-- where Galliano seems derivative, and Vivienne Westwood is left far behind--

Because of these activities, which we share with the world, anotherphoenician and others come crawling out squawking.

William Blake wrote, "He whose Face does not Shine, shall never become a Star." These Phoenix finks want everyone to keep their head down and go along and don't stand out. Shop at Swell and Plush and shut up. Well, they've got what they wanted.

There's more to say. When this post appears, after I'm finished crafting it, anotherphoenician will not be able to afford to identify herself/himself, I don't think. He/she will just look too stupid, manipulative, and infantile. By choosing anonymity, anotherphoenician instantly painted herself into a corner, and now she has to hide under a rock. Hah!

Let's see if we can pull this creature up closer to the light of day.

(Of course I won't reproduce the deleted comments. But I'll use them.)

The first thing I noticed from several comments is that the internet scares anotherphoenician --especially blogs and search engines. From one of the published comments:

The Jerome that thinks that getting to the top of a search engine list means a damned thing. A clue for you, it doesn't and it doesn't validate or substantiate anything you post in the least.

But people do find it easily and link to it and read it and make up their own minds. That's the whole idea. And are you the judge of meaning and validity and substantiation, and even damnation? No. You sound skeered, anotherphoenician.

I've had enough of an effect on you to get you to reply and who knows how many people will be effected [sic; it's affected] by my words. You have no way of really knowing, unless you want to make baseless assumptions on whose words have more of an effect. Something you simply cannot prove no matter how much you declare that you are right. And search engine listings are hardly evidence of truth or being correct.

I agree with most of this second passage. But I make none of the superiority claims she wants to attribute to me. (Projection, maybe?) I wrote in a recent post that we don't care how many readers we have; it's more important to direct the right eyes to the right words. Search engines help here. And she also implicitly endorses the power of blogs: "who knows how many people will be affected by my words." Making exactly my point.

From a deleted comment:

What a damn fool you are Jerome. Blogging will not save the world or even Phoenix. It is nothing more than wanking on the internet and millions of people do it and like your blog, it is nothing but ego masturbation.

You and Catherine are nothing but failed artists, who utilize your blog to make up for your sore egos.

Oh, we failed as artists in this city, that's for sure. But the big difference is that we walked away, leaving gifts in our wake. We chose to go. Nobody drove us away. We were not defeated by Artlink or any clique down there. We closed up our gallery and downed tools (as far as the public is concerned. We still make art, but just for us.) And, to repeat for the record, the Bentley crew didn't fire us --we quit after we found out we were being set up. You can look it up.

And any reader in the world can see what we "utilize" our blog for. Defending human dignity, the upward glance, the zone of respect around women, for starters; and always promoting the future, and calling attention to the vulnerable, the broken, the unfairly defamed . . . and especially the innocent dead.

Utilize. What a cold description for such a passionate mission!

I agree with your second sentence, provisionally. Blogging won't save the world, or Phoenix, but it will help in ways your tiny fearful brain cannot conceive.

Your third sentence is astounding, first because it ignores the new earth crater, still smoking, dubbed the Newsman Formerly Known As Dan Rather; but also because it condemns as wankers bloggers who range from Glenn Reynolds to Charles Johnson to Michelle Malkin to Franklin Einspruch to Bill Quick to James Lileks to Ed Morrisey to thousands of others. Carl Zimmer. Gene Expression. You call these people "nothing." Of course we'll take your expert word for it, idiota. Oh, but you don't blog, do you, whoever you are? Like Miss Amy Young, you're so over it.

I called this whistling in the dark before. You could also call this attitude, "If I close my eyes, you're not there." You could also call it having your head up your fundamental aperture, a pandemic in this metropolis.

In a variation of this blindness, anotherphoenician denigrates the validity of search engine results. In other words, if anyone in the world Googles "Kimber Lanning Phoenix" and we appear anywhere on the first page, to anotherphoenician this has no significance whatsoever. (Look, over there! Elvis!) And yet, from our tiny outpost in the blogosphere, we somehow get to park ourselves right beside her front door --stylish, intractable truth-tellers with irresistible stories and revelations, not her usual stepinfetchit cigar-store sycophants. Who can resist a shingle like "The Tears of Things"? Along with our catchy titles? Not many. Resistance is futile.

For a control freak like Kimber Lanning, who must always have the last word, this has got to be infuriating. Excellent: We want to play a more direct role in changing what is ignorable by whom.

Another bugbear for anotherphoenician: Tapping away, as with a small hammer on a purple bruise, at Catherine's mental illness. Sadist. Check out this meanness, readers:

It [anonymity] really has nothing to do with cowardess [sic: you mean, like a female coward? that's a tell, idnit? Haw!] or courage . . . it actually involves being "smart" in light of responding to a crackpot who is paranoid, carries a gun and is frustrated due to being incessantly pussywhipped by a crazy women who has been shellshocked by life and couldn't deal with adversity like most humans.

anotherphoenician is apparently physically afraid of us. That's a good thing. And smart, not "smart." We would never attack another human being unprovoked. But provoked --Nemo me impune lacessit! Translation: You goin' down.

Catherine wrestles with a condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is the only mental illness caused by other people. Some people suffer from clinical depression. Some people have conditions like OCD and mania and fetishistic infantilism --all recognized mental illnesses, syndromes, or conditions. Some people dress up like superheroes. Some people make so-called art from their urine. Some people are addicted to tattoos. Some people believe in teleportation and telepathy and alien beings. Some people are Adult Clowns; they paint the face in black, in white, in blue. Some people snort too much white powder, or live a lurching existence of eat-and-purge. Some people think our President is in league with The Devil. Others would describe these people, at least tentatively, as mentally ill, but I've just described a significant number of the downtown Phoenix art population, so why can't you sonsofbitches keep your fucking hypocrisy away from Catherine's pain!

Well, I know the answer. It's like a pecking party. The first chicken who sports a spot of blood becomes the bloodsport target. We've been there, we've suffered that, we got out of the way. And, of course, with no real arguments to bring to bear, the ad hominem / ad feminim is always ready to hand: they're crazy.

Yeah? So? We've acknowledged it. Crazy is a place: you go, you come back. We're still stronger, smarter, and better than you, anotherphoenician.

And Catherine deals with adversity every day, in herself and in the world. She's not alone in this. She shrinks from nothing, no matter what triggers may be hidden in events. What's your day like, anotherphoenician? Do you always have to watch out for psychological ambush? Of course not, because you always try to be the one who ambushes. Didn't work here, bitch.

Anyone out there can say what they want. That's why we have the blog. The blog stands for us. The blog speaks for us. Remember Ghandi? "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win." Wise words.

People like anotherphoenician want to be home invaders. This shitbird really thinks she can barge into our virtual house and talk trash:

[I wrote:]
For the last day or so I've let a foamer who calls itself "anotherphoenician" comment over and over on this thread. I had to delete a couple of comments from this being and samf, another anonymous commenter, for minimal decency's sake.

[ap wrote:]
More lies from Jerome. You "had" to delete my posts, simple bullshit.I wrote the truth and you couldn't take it, you can fisk others but can't take it yourself.

[I wrote:]
I wanted to let them run out their strings, which it seems they have.

[ap wrote:]
Another lie, you delete my posts and declare I have stopped posting, which I have not whatsoever.

But, you see, you stop posting when I delete you, otherwise, where are you posting? You have no control here, no power, no say, no standing. You are so thickheaded you think waving your useless electronic hands will get you somewhere. You think you can demand electronic space from me, and you don't even see how fookin rude that behavior is.

You're breathing thin air, fool. And you and samf were sexually insulting my wife, and you complain about me deleting your insults? Asshats. Ten to one you're alone in your life, both of you.

I really think you must be, anotherphoenician. I just went over the email / comment list from you, all but two of which I've had to delete. Since Tuesday, you have sent us thirteen comments: the original inspiration for the mediocrity piece --thank you! then five on Thursday, four on Friday, and three so far today. [Correction: #14 just sailed in.] You're as pathetically predictable as a Skinner pidgeon. Odd behavior for a bully.

In the name of the future of Phoenix, get out of the way.

The grown-ups are talking.

[Update: Numbers 15 and 16, duplicates of each other, and of 14 and 13, arrived on the comments to the earlier post after I posted this current one.]

ENCHANTED 08

Captured by Catherine King June 16, 2005

Inside The Writers' Bloc Clubhouse

by Jerome du Bois

According to downtown grant-grubbing gallerist Cindy Dach, Writers' Bloc Phoenix was realized at the beginning of this year. That is, the all-important House (Sixth Street Studios) was finished:

Writers’ Bloc is located in a 1200-square foot California bungalow style house with wrap around porch and small yard. There are three rooms that have two desks each and one room with one desk. Desk space is reserved weekly. The community space has comfortable chairs and tables for additional quiet workspace. Gallery space can be reserved for exhibits and community space can be reserved for workshops and seminars. Bookshelves have references books and lockers are provided for storage. The kitchen has a full-size refrigerator, microwave, oven and dining table. There is one bathroom. Desk space is reserved online.

Writers' Bloc Studio Space for Writers is a Phoenix, Arizona U.S.A. area writers collective that provides emerging and established writers, working in all literary genres, with quiet and affordable workspace in downtown Phoenix. In addition to workspace, Writers’ Bloc offers wireless Internet, printer, community workspace and occasional use for workshops and seminars on subjects of interest to writers.

So in January, I guess, writers began applying clamoring at the electronic doors. Today, six months later, June 16, 2005, these are the members of WB:

Greg Esser -- co-founder of WB, Dach's husband
Cindy Dach --co-founder of WB, Esser's wife
Amy Silverman --associate editor of Phoenix New Times
Amy Young --local gallerist and writer
Deborah Sussman Susser --local writer and . . . something
Nadine Kachur --no information
Maggie Lineback --local television producer
Kevin Vaughan-Brubaker --aka Transonic. Poet, musician, actor. Works for Arizona Commission on the Arts.
Rebecca Love --no information
Steve Jansen --local freelance writer

Ten members. Subtract the two founders, and you've got eight people who will pay $100 per month to hang out at this house and write the living ass off a thing. Big turnout. Still, how many do you need? That's $800 a month clear income to E&D, and with their own contributions, I'm sure they meet their monthly lease payment, including wireless access. Suhweet. Any new members will be gravy, baybee.

Why sit at home alone writing, where you have the most control of your environment, everything within reach, when you can drive downtown, park on the street, lay your money down, lug your laptop into the house, say hello to everyone, get set up, get a cup of coffee if there is any, talk to Cindy, talk to somebody, go back to the desk, get connected, get interrupted, head down to the bathroom, have to wait, talk to Greg, end up on the porch . . .

Cindy Dach said in January:

Why a home office isn't always enough: Home is a great place to work, but I think sometimes if you don't know other people working,[?!] and the dishwasher needs to be emptied, you do that instead. Here, there's no dishwasher to empty.

Well, hell, sign me up, I just fell off the turnip truck! (How long does it take to empty the dishwasher? How long does it take to craft a sentence that brings you to your knees in gratitude?)

Who cares if she can hardly speak English? This is Cindy Dach in the same interview:

Who's welcome to join: I like to say serious writers, which means anybody who wants professional space to work in. I would love to see novel writers, journalists, play writers, even people who do poetry.

Well, she gets one right. Correction: novelists, journalists, playwrights, even poets. (Note: no humorists.) And a lot of poets not only do poetry, they even write it. But not anywhere near this website.

Both Catherine and I have scoured the internet for some real writing --any writing-- by most of these people, and there's nothing. Most telling, of course, there's none of it on their own blog, where one would most expect to find stories and poetry and essays by the members. Or links to them. For example, NT reports that Dach "contributes to national and regional magazines." Rilly? Well, they must have zero online presence, or else she is contributing letters or filler.

Hey, kids! [Knocking on door.] What are you DOING in there?

Right now there's exactly one entry on the home page. We think we know several reasons for this state of events, all depending from the multiple puns of bloc.

Bloc, a French word from French politics, refers originally to a disparate group of people formed temporarily for a common purpose. Coalition would be the grander, international term. I use it here to point to the political aim of these people, which is to squeeze money out of any and every grant-giving agency that sticks its head up. Right now on the website, under the heading "Writing Workshops," only a lonely announcement appears about future workshops. "Check back for updates!" Don't hold your breath. But under "Special Events" they hot link to

The Grant Institute's Grants 101: Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshop will be held at the Arizona State University (Phoenix), June 15 - 17, 2005. All participants will receive certification in professional grant writing from the Institute.

Well, it's a fact that Greg Esser can scam the ass off a grant --he's been doing it since Denver-- so they've got the right operator at the dials for that purpose.

Nonexistent workshops after six months of existence. I think workshops are crap --more sponging and bullying-- but if you're going to advertise them, follow through. And no writing on a writers' blog? It makes no sense unless you're just operators working the dials.

The French word means block, the noun, a solid thing like a battering ram that can jam legislation through all resistance; no daylight, no cracks to exploit. But that block can also block the passage of --create a blockage for-- any light or progress. These blockheads surely don't leak a word of their creativity, their projects, not even a two-line poem, to the public. (What, you have to go down there and listen to them? Well, that's a tell.) Hardly any of them have blogs or websites or even online resumes. You can't read their stuff, by yourself, at home --you know, like a reader. On an internet where thousands share their hearts, not a electronic peep from these privileged ones. You know why?

They want to be paid.

Stop laughing, it's true. They think their words are gold, and they won't let you see a single one until they get money for it --in advance.

Again, Dach in January:

Why Writers' Bloc matters: As the arts are growing in Phoenix, it's important to make sure it's not only about visual artists. It's important that writers, dancers and musicians are involved.

Translation: Give us money, too.

Meanwhile, we've posted almost 400 pages of living prose, including a novel-in-progress (be patient).

A final interpretation of bloc would be the verb "to block" --meaning, there are gatekeepers at this clubhouse. You need to be vetted by The Special Ones. In other words, it's about strong people who want power exploiting the present weakness of people for the warm, fuzzy comfort of what they sell as community. BS. This is just an extension of the after-school writers' club at Sweet Valley High, or Hill Valley College.

Dach "teaches a writing group for high school girls called Fems With Pens." Pens? Why not, as Catherine suggests, Quills for Grrls? Also, while we're at it, notice that it's "Cindy," not the more musical and dignified "Cynthia." Which just about fits the tiny paper-doll outline, just asking for it, that you display on your website, Ms. Dach. You're 38 years old. Grow up!

For the members, they get to pretend to be writers; but more importantly, collectively, they get to belong, to blend in, to go along, to be fuzzy, to, oh, "benefit from the experiences of more experienced writers," and to pay a minimum of $700 for six months. Astounding. Just because someone won the $200 Schmucknoodle Prize for a 600-word essay does not amount to a hill of beans in a world where I can do better in my sleep.

For the founders, it's about power, and pushing others around, and some easy money, as usual:

What Dach has learned from the first collective she started, eye lounge: Being able to look at the group of people sort of with a bird's-eye view and seeing people's strengths. This is a small, private space, and the truth is, there's not going to be room in here for a competitive person. You want a competitive nature within yourself, but you don't want that person running around and knocking on everybody's door.[my emphasis]

I hear the voice of the alpha bitch.

This crew will probably get a grant or two from the new Phoenix Artist Storefront Pilot Program. Five grand at least, maybe as much as fifteen. Money ill spent. Pearls before swine.

They'll just write more grants.

Why do I write? Why does Catherine? We can't help it. We have to. Partly because of the way we're made, constantly wanting to make sense of the world, and partly because of the ways we've been bent, broken, and had to bootstrap ourselves back to reality, we know we're on our own; we know we have to grab every day by the biceps and wrestle it down.

Crazy is a place: you go, you come back. When you go, nobody wants to know; when you come back, they want to read all about it. We two have to know what we are trying to say to ourselves and to others. That's why we write.

By comparing our life's experiences, Catherine and I know we have always been outsiders.

By reading others --I mean thousands-- we know our thoughts are not of the common type, but run against the winds of convention, and are therefore worth nourishing.

By practice, one hones one's words for future use.

Why are we giving it away? Because I believe our ship will come in. When La Pionera and the New Mango is finally polished it will glow with undeniable fire. In the meantime, we are full of ideas. Hell, we even give them away. We'll put The Collective I or Furthur The Backward Bus up against anybody else's mojo. Our Bentley Projects installation, American Gothic, profoundly elegiac, would have been an important notch in American Historical Art, if only they had been serious from the beginning. No matter in the long run. The important points are these:

Just Show Up.
Show Your Work.
Show Your Hand.
Show Your Name.

Every Word Flesh.

ENCHANTED 07

Captured by Catherine King June 15, 2005

People Love Mediocrity Best

by Jerome du Bois

If one Googles "Amy Silverman Phoenix" my recent post on her cover story about Phoenix's mythical "inferiority complex" still hovers near the top of the first page. This encourages me, because just as her piece was not really about Phoenix, but her, my piece was not really about her, but Phoenix, and I want to keep that conversation alive. Which is why I ended my post this way:

. . . I myself answer the [Silverman title] question this way: No. No such complex.

But Phoenix has inferior cultural leaders. Besides those we've mentioned in our series [including Kimber Lanning, the subject of this present post on mediocrity], the management at the Phoenix New Times are prime culprits and have been for years. Fourteen years ago, when I covered art for them, I told them they needed to create a staff position for a professionally-trained arts writer, so that the professional art world would take both Phoenix and New Times more seriously. Someone who could dig, travel, schmooze. But they never have taken the plastic arts seriously. After all, look who they trot out to cover them: Amy Silverman, Benjamin Leatherman, some new clowns. If the reader can stand it, go check out the first couple of sentences of Douglas Towne's squib on the "Wet" Show at SMoCA. And then go read the first couple of sentences in Niki D'Andrea's tiny review of the Rezurrection Gun Show. Filthy talk, eh? You're reading the future of art writing in Phoenix. Read it, as we say around here, and weep.

Since the beginning of this blog we've had a category, and purpose, called "Elevating the Local Discourse." We satirized the insipid talk and writing of local artists, for example, to get them to really think. It didn't work, because all the responses we got were ad hominem attacks or general claims without justification. Still, we continue, sometimes seriously, sometimes tongue-in-cheek. But always to make Phoenix better. (Check out The Collective I, or the recent piece on the nonexistent Arizona Art Blog.)

Now, same as it ever was, we get the following comment early yesterday morning on the Silverman piece, from the pseudonymous "anotherphoenician."

Comments:

Although Silvermans article was insipid, Jeromes vitriolic criticism was simply tasteless as well. Jerome once again throws arrows from his ivory tower revealing a life full of self-hate and loathing. Oh yeah, you got the clothes and eat the good food: I'm sure to assauge the feelings Jerome has for being p*ssywhipped into the being he is today.

Well --I nearly fell off the floor. I'll fisk this weirdness after the jump, but first . . . Catherine and I have reread this note several times, and talked about it, and we think we know who wrote it, so we will address anotherphoenician as she; also, we think it was more than the article, and the Pride of Phoenix Series, which prompted these words. It was re-stimulated by something that happened two days ago, out in public. Catherine looks fabulous, doesn't she?

(Since I always pay close attention to word iconography, I note that anotherphoenician follows the common pomo practice of the lower-case lifestyle. Such as "modified arts" or "eyelounge." To me, it's a psychological tell: don't stick out, keep your head down; please don't think I'm important or anything.)

Anyway, the comment begins:

Although Silvermans article was insipid, Jeromes vitriolic criticism was simply tasteless as well.

I call Amy Silverman all kinds of names, but I sure do justify them from within her own article. For example, she doesn't mind ending her article with a kind of burglar's calling card, when she and her boss, Rick Barrs, compare the neighborhood around NT as a "complete shithole." (But I'm tasteless.) For that I call her jaded, cynical, shallow, self-centered, priveleged, arrogant, and a lot of other things, and I'll stand by them all.

Remember, I don't know this woman; I've never met her. Everything I know about her comes from conclusions I have drawn from her own writings, and reasonable inferences about her behavior. Reader, if you think I'm misrepresenting her, step up with something besides generalities.

Jerome once again throws arrows from his ivory tower revealing a life full of self-hate and loathing.

The jaw drops. For one thing, she's got the hate direction wrong. For the last five years, for the first time in my life, I love and nurture myself. I hate some people, damn right, and I won't apologize for it, and I don't mind adding ourselves to new enemies' lists. I'm also angry at a lot of the hell we live with, and I'll attack that, too.

Another target: we loathe mediocrity, which Silverman embodies and advances in her article. She's a bad example of a Phoenician, and a lazy, unreflective person. She went away to New York City for years, and all she brought back was the same person that left. Hence my counterbalancing post.

But I love life, and Catherine, and every morning. That's all I need. And if I had arrows, I would shoot them from a bow or crossbow. Who throws arrows? And "ivory tower" implies academia, a realm very very far from us, thank God.

Oh yeah, you got the clothes and eat the good food: I'm sure to assauge the feelings Jerome has for being p*ssywhipped into the being he is today.

I can see how she would know about our style, having seen us around, but how does she know about the good food? We don't go out to eat that often, but when we do, of course we go first class. And I've posted only one recipe so far, even though we both do serious cooking at home. That's part of what I mean about loving life. And what's wrong with nice clothes and good food? Answer: they are not mediocre. To repeat the phrase Catherine coined: People Love Mediocrity Best. (That's what we're changing around here.)

But it's the p*ssywhipped part that floored me. This woman seems to think that Catherine has me cowed in some way, and that I am weak. First, Catherine and I are partners. As for weak, I rather think my electronic profile comes across as combative, cantakerous, obnoxious, honest, sometimes even noble, funny, broken-hearted, often long-winded, consistent, damned well-written, and, above all, consistent. But never wimpy.

Then, there's the sexist aspect, which I'll expand on below. Trying to sting anyone with this minimizing epithet, no matter the gender of the sender, is sexist as hell.

Also, there's a hint that anotherphoenician knew us both very casually awhile back. And here I'll adopt Ms. Silverman's trope and tell a true-life story, mainly for local readers, one I don't think I've ever told before, about Catherine and I and Kimber Lanning and mediocrity.

There was a time, way back when I was working the music department at Borders, and making art on the side, that I was determined to do the best job I could at the store, and that I would try to be the best person I could in my daily encounters with people there. I was a nice guy, ask anyone.

Those times are over. These days, I trust nobody and keep everybody at a distance. I walk around armed. No hay problema. I know where I live, and I know our position in this city. We've pissed off artists, Muslims, some educators, and illegal immigration activists, so far.

Four years ago, Catherine publicly represented me before she began doing her own art again, and before our King & du Bois collaborations. One day as I left for work, I asked her to call a gallerist, Kimber Lanning, and cancel a show of my word art I had scheduled for a couple of weeks later at her second-rate venue, Stinkweeds Records in Tempe. It would have been my very first show in the Valley. I had two reasons for changing my mind, but I asked Catherine to mention only one: I thought my stuff was at least as strong as anything at modified arts; that was the more proper gig, not a record store. Well, Catherine finally got through to her, late in the afternoon.

I'm going to slow down and expand on this conversation, which reveals a lot about Kimber Lanning. First, when Catherine announced herself as my representative and told her about the cancellation, Lanning got all huffy and up on herself, saying things like "This just isn't done" and "Who else do you represent?" and "Can't he speak for himself?"