Can Art Survive Technology? Or, I Miss Seeing Your Face

Like many artists, I would like to understand why John Q. Public isn't interested in, say, purchasing a painting of mine for $800, even if it's for a good cause. I would like to understand why people think I shouldn't have to be paid for singing. I would like to understand why people don't read books anymore, why books and literature aren't appealing.

Why buy a painting when you can rip it off the internet for free, and look at it any time you want? If you have good enough technology, you could just print out the painting at home and hang it on your wall, who cares if the actual paint isn't visible? Who even uses real paint for art these days? Isn't Photoshop enough?

Everything is so easily accessible: music, film, theatre, writing...all of the institutes that supported communities of artists are dying: museums, galleries, newspapers and real-life publishing, concert halls and opera houses, movie theaters and playhouses...so how can an artist make a profit off of their art, when there is no audience, no group of people willing to pay money for it?

Maybe I'll find an answer to this question, but I don't see one right now. People have to make a conscious decision to support the arts, people have to abandon their laziness and make the extra effort to leave the privacy of their homes to see that movie, or hear that performance. It seems that is a lot to ask of the generation wearing iPhone-shaped blinders, who cannot experience anything if it doesn't manifest as a digital image at their fingertips.

Yes, I can admit to using youtube and google to look at art, to watch a movie clip or read a poem. But I am left feeling empty, as if I had no real connection to the art, and it stirs a desire for further interaction. If I see a painting by Frida Kahlo online, I resolve to someday see that painting in real life, to cough up the dinero to squint at the brushstrokes and experience something that I will remember for a long time. I can tell, though, that a lot of people out there are satisfied by simply googling whatever art they fancy and shooting a quick glance at it while their feature film downloads.

To say nothing of the profound expense of human interaction. How are we to relate to one another, to empathise and have compassion, when there is no need for the human touch, the face-to-face experience? How can we call ourselves a community when we rarely commune, when we are content to pile into our giant destructive SUVs and spend our days zooming from cozy garage to cozy garage, plying the children into gaping silent apathy as they stare at the DVD players in the backseat? How are we to enjoy good conversations when every restaurant's wall is covered in television screens (St. Clare, pray for us) and we have every opportunity to abandon our loved ones for the siren song of constant image stimulation? To me, technology is like caffeine or cigarettes, a common drug that keeps us feeling calm and satiated, lest we forget the impending emphysema, heart attack, or lung cancer that looms with each little sin committed. So we indulge in the instant gratification that our internet can provide, again and again, for free, and we take it and all the work that is poured into it daily for granted.

A society loses its identity without arts and culture. And likewise, an economy suffers when the institutions of arts and culture aren't supported by active, engaged, thinking individuals. Can you imagine visiting New York without seeing a Broadway show? Or driving through a Hollywood with no movie stars, with no acting talent to admire? Yet that is what we sacrifice, every time we download a movie for free, or youtube a scene from Wicked. And while Broadway and Hollywood may be safe due to their size, age, and enduring appeal, Denver's arts district may not be so lucky.

Are we going to take ownership of our humanity, our communities, our fellow human beings, or are we going to stay behind the screen, for convenience's sake? I can tell you that it's not very convenient for me to spend months creating art only for it to receive a passing glance, and not a cent for my efforts. When I create art I do it to enrich my community, but I cannot do that without economic support. None of us can. We have to eat, and live, and food, unfortunately, is not something that we can download for free...yet.

Election 2008 Part I

It has taken me some time this year to observe the progress of the presidential election with care and consideration.

Yesterday Governor Sarah Palin was nominated as Vice President of the United States. Together with Senator John McCain, she promotes a potential presidency that will refuse GLBT individuals basic civil and human rights, refuse women the right to choose, and refuse all of us our Constitutional rights, just as we have been refused all these things for the past eight years.

If McCain becomes president, I won't be able to legally marry the love of my life, nor will I be able to visit her in the hospital as a family member. I won't be able to choose whether or not to have children if I become pregnant (even if I am raped), and I won't be able to adopt a child borne of my partner. If for whatever reason I am able to have children, my children will have the choice to be taught what to think in a parochial or charter school or to be products of a bankrupt, corrupt public education system run on a corrupt business model. My children will grow up in a country with one national religion, without freedom to choose their beliefs and practice them without contempt or persecution. My children will be denied scientific exploration and knowledge of facts and theories because their science classes will be censored and used as platforms to enforce evangelical Christian politics.

In this McCain-run United States, the infrastructure of the country will continue to deteriorate, because John McCain will cut the taxes we need to fund our government entities. Without tax increases, states won't have the funds they need to build and repair highways and bridges, to maintain law enforcement and emergency response entities, to maintain school districts, and other public services. John McCain's tax cuts will mean the most to the wealthy, people with large investments in corporations and in the oil industry.

John McCain supports oil companies and offshore drilling as a means of "energy independence." He ignores the facts that Al Gore has shown us in his seminars and films, which are supported by the majority of scientists in the world: that oil production and consumption, as well as coal production and consumption, is largely responsible for global warming and that our global climate is and will continue to be in jeopardy unless we drastically change our energy strategy. Our world is at stake and John McCain stands with the wealthy, and with people who are in denial about the state of our world.

John McCain supports Bush's foreign policy. In his acceptance speech for the candidacy, he said that he would stop friendly relations and financial aid to countries who "don't like us very much" and of course, he wants to continue the war in Iraq because he thinks we're winning. He doesn't support diplomacy with the nations that threaten to develop nuclear weapons, though I will give him credit for saying, at least, that he wants to engage in new diplomacy with Russia after their explosive recent war.

However, McCain doesn't seem to be very interested in restoring our relationship with our allies in Europe and Asia. Unlike Barack Obama, he hasn't said much of anything about how we can redeem ourselves before Europe and the rest of the world. He doesn't seem to see how humiliating it is to engage with the world while we wage a war upon a decimated country and rattle our many sabers.

Barack Hussein Obama

Well, here it is, everyone: I support Barack Obama, even though Hillary is the darling now (God knows why). And I guess people have been trying to defeat Obama by bringing up the fact that he has Muslim heritage, and his middle name is Hussein. I have several problems with this. First of all, anyone who isn't a dumb American with no education would know that Hussein is a very common name in Muslim countries, it's like Hernandez in Spanish-speaking countries. So just because Obama's middle name is Hussein, it doesn't mean he's related to a dictator family, and it doesn't mean he is going to declare jihad on us (oh, and in case we forgot, Osama bin Laden of AFGHANISTAN and Al Qaida declared jihad on us, NOT Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Saddam was perfectly nice and quiet, just minding his own normal business of torturing his citizens, but he wasn't trying to blow up our skyscrapers. OSAMA was. In Afghanistan. Where he is, still alive, and still plotting against us. Hmmmm....we haven't really accomplished anything for our own safety, have we? DUH.)

Second of all, I would feel very safe having Obama fly around the world representing the United States as its president. If you think Bush is buddy-buddy with the oil-mongers in Saudi Arabia, think of what Obama could do in terms of relating to Muslim people. Muslims are going to be more likely to listen to an American who has a name similar to theirs and who vaguely resembles someone from their country than they will listen to Bushy-wushy with his darling curly hair and his Texan cowboy demeanor. Hey, maybe if we had a president who wasn't so antagonistic towards Muslims, the Muslim extremists wouldn't hate and want to blow us up so much! Do we really think Hillary is going to do a better job relating to Muslim countries than Barack Obama would? What experience does she have, except the same thing all the other presidents have had, the experience of a privileged white American?

I'm on Obama's side. Jihad, how ridiculous. If Bush's "war on terror" isn't jihad, I don't know what is.

Things I learned from the Lower Middle Class

Here are some little factoids I have learned so far in my sojourn from a comfy upper middle class lifestyle to a high-stress, depressing lower middle class lifestyle.

If you don't want to be laid off from your retail job, DON'T:

-take a job as seasonal staff and then call in sick on Thanksgiving Day, even if you really are sick
-sit down for any reason while on the clock
-linger for too long in any one place; keep moving and looking busy
-refuse overtime or you will be perceived as not sharing in the "company vision" (or at the least, be persecuted by your supervisors)
-spend too much time in the bathroom, or go to the bathroom more than once in the span of fours hours, unless you want your managers to start asking questions


If you want to get a good recommendation from your employers, DON'T:

-be late for any reason, even if your train was burning up in the subway
-call off of work unless you're passing out from fever or limping, or bleeding internally, or possibly throwing up
-allow your job status/title and the mind-numbing boredom set in to your psyche, lest you be perceived as sluggish

Also, DON'T:

-bother caring about the way you dress or your appearance in general. The people you serve, as well as your supervisors, look at you so rarely that there's a good chance no one will notice that you haven't washed your uniform in weeks
-even dream of buying new clothes. Nobody cares what you wear because nobody is looking at you to see what you are wearing, and why invest in new clothes when you wear the same bedraggled uniform day in and day out, the same exact uniform that three former employees of the company wore before you?
-spend money on anything other than survival, unless you want to be begging from people by the end of the month
-let on that you have more education than your managers
-expect to be treated equally as a female in the male dominated workforce

...this is just the beginning. More to come.

Moon Conquest

I was watching the full moon sink past the roof of my apartment building the other night, and for the first time in my life, I thought about the moon landings with a little lurch in my stomach. I grew up thinking, like every other American child, that the astronauts who landed on the moon were heroes, and that the whole NASA program is inspirational and overall positive.

But then I was watching the moon the other night, and thinking about how the only foreign objects on that body are male human footprints, an assortment of human trash, and a bunch of American flags. What kind of message does that send? Men stomp all over, leave their trash lying around, and assume that because they claimed something in the name of their country, that makes it rightfully theirs. It used to be that the sun never set on the British Empire. Now the sun indeed never sets on the American Empire, because even the moon belongs to us. With that kind of bravado and hubris, is it a wonder that everyone hates America?

During the first space race, Nixon heavily emphasized media focus on the space program, to distract and deter people from being unhappy and resentful about the Vietnam War, a war that we entered into to righteously rescue helpless Asians from evil communism and help their crippled country flourish into a beautiful, America-like democracy. We landed our men on the moon five years after we had engaged in war with North Vietnam. And if King George II's dreams had come true after he announced legislation for a new moon landing in January of 2004, we would have embarked on a new moon mission exactly five years after the start of the Iraq war.

(If this is so obvious to me, WHY aren't the rest of the American people demanding that we resolve the issues in Iraq immediately?)

It has been said that the moon landing helped chasten the tongues of irate opponents to the Vietnam war and glorified the names, however temporarily, of Kennedy and Nixon. I'm guessing that King George II wanted the same kind of warm spotlight on him so that he could go down in history, maybe as the first administration to send people to Mars, who knows.

How can anyone be patriotic when America refuses to learn from her mistakes, when we go to war time and time again with our administration piping vague excuses through our TV sets and radios, when we exhibit nothing short of intergalactic imperialism with every action we take? I was just reading about how our 'Merican military scientists exploded and increased the Van Allen radiation belts that surround Earth in the 1960s! How crass can America be, to think that we own the world and all its satellites, that the earth is our plaything and we can create or destroy it and everything in and/or on it whenever we want!? How can Americans sit by and twiddle their thumbs when our entire country is and has been plunging into some sort of sick plan for world domination?

I don't even want to look at the moon now, I want to move far far away from American soil and try to forget all about America, but the problem is, nobody can forget about America, because as long as a person can see the moon, a person can glimpse American-claimed soil, we can't escape it, and for me, that's not a comfort, it's a suffocating, terrifying thought.

We lost the war.

As I was waiting for the train today I was thinking about why we're at war, why Osama bin Laden attacked us and why we're involved in this thing with Al-Qaida. King George tells us that they hate our freedom, they're attacking our freedom, and I guess they are, I guess they do...Maybe they're jealous, or maybe they think that capitalism is inherently evil, and maybe it is. Here's what I think. If Al-Qaida wanted to attack us to destroy our freedoms and destroy our way of life and tear apart our country, they have been more successful with one single blast than I'm sure they ever dreamed. Those twelve guys that murdered thousands of people with four airplanes brought heaps of success onto themselves and their comrades. Just look at what their actions have wrought. Now, America is in a death-lock with the Iraq war, stretching her resources very thin indeed to keep up the battle-pace. Meanwhile, America's attentions have turned away from her own corporeality, the plentiful gaze is on the military and keeping the fighting machine running without a draft or any of the other old war measures that used to be in place. Thus America is dying from the inside, like an old leathery smoker woman, piling on cakes of expensive makeup to "keep up appearances", buying expensive clothing and accessories to adorn the wasted body inside them. But it is to no avail. The downfall has begun. The terrorists have won, more than they ever intended. They wanted capitalism to crumble into ruin, beginning with the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And look, America, look at the wasteland around you, look at our wasted beaches, our burning forests, look at our dying children, our shut-up factories and businesses, look at the farms crippled with pestilence and drought. Look at the Dickensian world we have created together with the terrorists, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where all those tools that we built to hold our fundamental democratic rights in place have been destroyed by greed and hubris. Even our sense of justice has died, that we see this all around us and wallow in our apathy, crippled by fear and ignorance.

So, next time you want to wave a flag or be proud of America, think of how we have lost, think of what we sacrificed the day we decided to invest in the prosperity of war rather than of our country. The mission was indeed accomplished, as King George put it, but preserving our freedoms was apparently not part of that mission. So let us march onward to preserve the freedoms of teh Iraqi people, while our own country falls into ruin. Let us sit back and admire the repulsive beauty of our hubris.

Burning Bridges

First of all let me express my sympathies to the victims of the Minneapolis bridge collapse and their families. This kind of thing shouldn't happen in America unless it is instigated by some natural disaster: flood, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, blizzard...but in the richest country in the world, there is no excuse for our roads, bridges, and transport systems to be in their current state.

Everyone asks (just as they do in any disaster) why did this happen? Then again, the long Uncle Sam finger searches for someone at which to point in blame. But instead of Uncle Sam pointing outward, he should point inward and blame himself. This, like most American tragedies, is our fault, and we have the power to fix it if we begin thinking about our fellow Americans and stop thinking about ourselves.

Everyone wants tax cuts. Lower taxes, less government..blah blah blah. Politicians use the American avarice for their own benefit, winning whole elections based on their supposed viewpoint on lowering or cutting taxes. NO AMERICAN SHOULD SUPPORT TAX CUTS. It is selfish; every time someone gets a tax refund, they are stealing that money from society, they are refusing to help pay for the services we all need.

Why did the bridge collapse? The Minnesota Department of Transportation has most likely made budget cuts over several years to stay afloat; the funds allotted to them by the government have in turn been lessened. Why? The less taxes we pay as citizens, the less money goes into the government coffers to be distributed to entities like the Transportation Department. With budget cuts come layoffs and service cuts; repairs are made less frequently to roads because there simply is not enough money in the government bank to pay for it. So roads and bridges deteriorate, and then--what do we expect--bridges cave in, "accidents" happen, sinkholes appear...These events are not coincidence or chance, they are the direct result of our apathy as citizens and our selfish reluctance to contribute to the wellness of our society as a whole.

So ask your government representatives to raise taxes. Make charitable contributions. Adopt a highway. Volunteer. Do these things so that more people don't die needlessly on our roads, treading perilous paths that we have created through our hubris. Be not an America that says, I, me, my, mine...but we, ours, us.