Free Art

On Saturday, I had the unique pleasure of becoming a piece of performance art.

At the Columbia Museum of Art, a ceramics grad student was completing his thesis by giving away 400 individual pieces of art for less than a song.

Truth be told, although I had read about the giveaway earlier in the week, I had forgotten about the project. But since I knew Rocky, I stopped by the museum on my way home from work.

Joining a line of approximately 100 other art afficianados, junkies, undergrads, and freeloaders who couldn't resist a good deal, I was sure that most of the art was gone, that I wouldn't get a piece, but also that the experience was worth the investment of my patience. And, hell, I had nothing pending on my busy social calendar.

Engaging in the piece -- an act of simple will and patience, no more complicated than standing in line -- did bring interesting issues to the mind, however. The pacing of the piece was slow; three pieces were displayed on pedestals, and a new piece (or pieces) were added after each visitor's selection. This gave me plenty of time to ponder how I would make the selection and, by extension, how I personally respond to art.

This is an issue I have been dealing with for sometime already. In looking at art over the past few years, I have been trying to decode my own reactions to pieces. What aesthetic sensibilities do I respond to? What is the most creative/interesting medium? Is a painting by Monet any better than the architecture of Frank Gehry?

Increasingly, I have become aligned with the visceral school of thought. "Go with your first instinct" is a good rule to follow, but it has some drawbacks. For instance, shocking art without depth seems to be more valuable than it truly is. Moreover, pieces through which the artist's intentions are miscommunicated are diminished, even though the intention is valid and sincere.

So when my turn came, my chance to exercise theory, I found that it was useless. My gut reaction took over and lead me nowhere. Among the three pieces, I was drawn to the vase on the left -- a craggy glazed one, approximately eighteen inches tall. In the middle was a simple black piece, with glaze that had run at some point and left an interesting black-on-black streaking pattern. On the right was a green vase, also about eighteen inches tall, dimpled and very shiny.

So, on impulse, I grabbed the last one.

That's it. This was not a visceral aesthetic reaction -- this was the artistic equivalent of Blind Man's Bluff. When the chips fell, all the methodology went right out the window, and I panicked.

How embarrassing.

My Nephew

I met my nephew Benjamin for the first time an hour ago, and the experience was a disconcerting one.

Maybe it was the exhaustion after having spend most of last night with my girlfriend at the hospital getting treatment for an asthma attack.
Maybe it was the strange morning that followed: almost oversleeping, stumbling into class, bleary-eyed and three minutes late.
Maybe it was the weather: a white-hot sandhills midday sun, light blue afternoon, and the sunshadows cast by the passing clouds which reduce the colors of the world from brilliant to greyscale.

Whatever it was, something made me feel completely out of place.

Maybe it was the fact that I am now an uncle, a functional, responsible unit in the rearing of a child. I potentially have responsibility towards this individual. That's a bruiser for a twenty-year-old.

I also felt awkward and estranged from my sister and brother-in-law. I felt like a burden. We only saw each other in passing -- a brief lunch at the local café, then back into the car, out I-26 and away to the coast.

So why did it feel like I was an impediment . . . ?

Meine ältere Schwester ist sechzehn Jahre vor mir geboren. Als ich geboren wurde, hat meine Schwester schon bei der
High School Kurse belegt. Sie machte Debatte, sie war Schauspielerin, und sie hat ein Auto fahren können. Sie hat
Freundinnen, sie hat Freunde. Heutzutage kann ich mich erinern, wie ich ihr anbeten hat. Wenn sie einen Film sah, saß ich
auf der Sofa mit ihr. Wenn sie Pizza aß, aß ich auch ein Stück Pizza. Sie war wie eine Göttin.

Whatever.

Mein Neffe

I read the Times

I've been into the Amazon. I've seen what happens when it is clearcut. I've met the people who make their livelihood from both the trees and the soil. And I am not convinced, by any stretch of the imagination, that deforestation could be contrued as positive development. (1)

Kelly and London, you have a good argument. I'll concede that, and I hate to deny Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Indonesia (2) the opportunity to develop their natural resources as they see fit, but I also cannot believe that the decision should be left to them alone.

White people created this problem, and white people should help clean it up.

These countries are desperately poor, not becuase of paucity of natural resources, but because people beyond their borders are in control of those resources. This means export prices are not under the control of the countries of origins. Institutions such as the WTO, a body committed towards free trade, exacerbate the problem by slapping the hands of nations that try to fix the prices of their resources. (3)

If we open up the Amazon basin, as Kelly and London are suggesting, the same thing is going to happen. In a capital-driven market, the raw material is going to be the cheapest commodity. Value-added processes will add to sales value. The WTO will never allow Brazil and Cambodia to set and maintain "artificially"(4) prices for raw materials, and if they did, the global supply chain would simply be routed around them in search of cheaper sources. In the end, they would be completely undermined (bad, bad, bad pun).

We need to continue to to find ways to protect the economic infrastructure of developing nations, while allowing them to exploit some of their native potential. But this doesn't necessarily mean mining and logging. Eco-tourism is booming across South America and South-East Asia. Countries are free to fix prices, and to tax, tarriff, and cajole tourists into supporting the nation's economy. It's a fickle solution -- tourism is an unpredictable industry, susceptible to fads and runs of bad luck. But it's still better than the alternative massive deforestation in the search of baubles.

There are several reasons to halt deforestation. One is that we can not be sure that the forests will come back. Secondary growth in west Africa can take 20 years to return. (5) Who knows if the primary growth will take 30, 300, or 3000 years to return. Second, despite what George Bush's America™ believes, the climate is in a state of flux. What mankind's impact on the process is, we cannot be sure. However, it is widely believed that equitorial forest belts play into the global climate in significant ways. Before we destroy that factor, we need to understand much more completely what the impact will be.

And finally, biodiversity will be severly curtailed. Studying the diversification of species and evolution is vital to our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Anytime we destroy a species, we make our whole understanding of the universe more incomplete by and order of magnitude. This has to stop. Nature has to take charge again. We cannot play God anymore.

What can we do in the meantime? Be willing to give something up. Investigate rainforest and ocean land-holding trusts, find a reputable one, and invest in it. Support efforts to increase patrols and law enforcement in developing areas. Be a tourist in these places -- you'll come away with a completely different understanding of "natural resources" and help to build the economies of these desperately poor nations. Use less energy -- turn off lights, wash the dishes by hand twice a week, and buy a hybrid or an electric car. Reduce your overall consumption of raw and refined resources. And share your newspaper with someone -- or at least recycle it.

1. Kelly, Brian, and Mark London. "Bright Spots in the Rain Forest." New York
Times, 22 Ap. 2004, A27:1.
2. Just to name a few. In reality, virtually every country between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn could be similarly addressed.
3. "Free Trade" is really a code-word for malicious mining of underdeveloped nations for the benefit of the developed. Jamaica tried to increase the cost of bauxite exports by pennies per ton in the 1980's and was sharply rebuked by the world market, who shifted their major bauxite mining to Africa. While the tarriff was in effect, the government was able to provide education and health care for its citizens. When the bauxite market moved across the Atlantic, Jamaica once again became a desperately poor nation.
4. Another BS word -- "artificially" high prices may be perfectly reasonable and cost-effective for both seller and purchaser, but may still be more than an industry is willing to pay.
5. still trying to find this resource

Site Overhaul

Major site overhaul. Just about everything, except the background colors, is different or has been moved. It's insane how much time this took.

And, for the record, I hate HTML.

Keep that in mind, Adam. . .