On Necessity, Sufficiency, and Rules

The thing that’s got people pissed off today is that there are no longer any necessary or sufficient conditions for art. The other thing that’s got people pissed off today is that there never were. There were only, ever, rules. Continue reading →

On Bad Art as Journeyman

I need my bad work to walk ahead of me, to light the trashed road ahead.  I need my bad work to trail close behind me, to catch me in error and to sheath my verbal kit. That bad work comes along, not a journeyman, but a hidden marker, on the way to good work … Continue reading →

On Teleology, Evolution, Suit-Wearing and History as Novelism

I was having this conversation yesterday with my girlfriend about how in talk of evolution there is room to disagree with so-called evolutionists because some evolutionist don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. There is room to disagree because many evolutionists don’t talk about evolution as premised in a way we think about the … Continue reading →

On Sincerity: Auden

I’ve been reading a lot of W.H. Auden recently. And what struck me, in reading him, is that sincerity without a target on which to pile on for broadly welfarist reasons, which when marked and painted is your run-of-the-mill authenticity, sounds a lot like white middle-class privilege.   Continue reading →

On The Weird Fact that Something I Said Got Compared to Duchamp

Here, slightly edited:  a conversation I had with my colleague and friend–though, I’ve never met the man–Odin: On the Guardian piece about the collapsing incomes of writers, and Odin’s sincere and challenging critique of people who think they’re writers just because they have a blog. (Opinions are like assholes, right? And everyone of those assholes … Continue reading →

On Art Writing, Or: Writing Refuse I

  I’m going to post the unedited refuse of things I’ve published elsewhere. This project starts now; it won’t be backdated. Here’s the first of that: that the “prison swap” prisoner of conscience Private Berghdahl’s most difficult test will be to become what he was to all those he loved and who loved hime before … Continue reading →

On Materiality

  Well, now, what we’re really talking about is contingency and circumstance. How you found what you found, where, and what you’ll do with it, what of it and who cares. Continue reading →

On Art as Experience: “Saving” a City

This weekend is the run-time for the second coming of the Newburgh Illuminated Festival. A city-wide gathering of art, music, retrieved and lived history, and a co-mingling of different people on different cross-roads. It’s part of a move to recapture the history, the culture and context of Newburgh, the city that in the until the … Continue reading →

On Getting a Painting Right

  The thing about getting a painting right is: you’re fucked. ‘Cause, now what? Continue reading →

On Art and On Bullshit

  When someone says to you, an artist, that you should go with your instincts you shouldn’t interpret that to mean going with your instincts will yield good results, or that anything about that will come out interesting. You should interpret that to mean that you’ll have to live with yourself no matter what you … Continue reading →