amul: (Default)
[personal profile] amul
"....We have so thoroughly equated photography with visual perception that no matter how far the photographic image is distorted to make it not look real, it always retains its right to become a hole in a gallery wall, an opening to some unspecified 'truth' beyond. No matter what we do to the negative or the print or our minds before we expose, the illusion of our absence in the process, the illusion of non-intervention, remains. The viewer can still say, 'There, down there in that corner,: the artist had nothing to do with that. That came unhindered by intention, directly from the world in front of the camera.' But of course it's not true. There is no difference between the blank piece of paper in front of the poet and the unexposed film. Nothing but intervention follows."

When I was a boy assigned to writing school reports, I would constantly complain about having to cite authors in order to prove my point. Can I not have my own opinions? Do my arguments count for nothing unless someone else has argued them first? Now, I find that I do not want to cite authors so much as discuss what they have to say, quote them and talk about what their words mean to me, and how these words have led me to words of my own. Maybe that was the original point of writing papers, but I think that intent was lost long ago in the process.

My next door neighbor cooked dinner for us today, I think mostly because he was tired of looking at his own kitchen. My own kitchen felt horrifically dirty, but he estimated that it would probably take three times as long for us to clean his kitchen as mine.

I use my kitchen as a gauge of my mental state, you know. When my dishes are clean, when my floor is mopped, my countertops scrubbed, you know that I am happy, healthy, exploring the world and finding good in it. When they're dirty, it's an indication that I've lost myself in isolation and circular logic, have spent nights pacing in circles through my apartment muttering about some slight which I feel is too ancient to atone or correct.

My dishes are dirty, right now. But my neighbor assures me that it's only slightly so, nothing that I couldn't clean up once I set my mind to it.
This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
141516 17181920
21222324252627
28293031   

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated 24 December 2025 14:50
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios