Hello all,
Well I find time to chat now, sooooo
Patricia started the ball rolling so if I recap she wrote:
>I've had a short back&forth post with a fellow fluxlister
about art/study - my first thought was that, as a visual
artist, I couldn't think of anyone I'd like to study with.
Got me to thinking - most of the artists I would invisage
tutelage are no longer around: to wit;<
and
>That's my list for today...
What about yours?<
Now I'm generally not in favour of meeting my heroes in any media because I
don't want to find out that they're normal people too, I'd rather they were
superpowerful aliens with vastly superior aesthetic judgement and a manual
dexterity that allowed them to create wonderfully in any medium. In fact
there's nothing worse than the occasional realisation that people you admire
are all too human, sometimes unpleasantly so, for example I'm a great
admirer of William Burroughs work but I believe Burroughs the man leaves a
lot to be desired and would have had no desire at all to get to know him
also I don't
believe he has anything to teach anyone, apart from perhaps the intricacies
of finding a vein or using scissors and a newspaper to write a novel!
So who would I like to study/hang out with, first thoughts off the top of my
head, like Patricia I have a lot of not possibles due to the whole
life/death thing that we're all currently caught up in:
music>
John Cage ....not possible
Sun Ra ......not possible
Steve Reich .....this could happen, I've been to a lecture of his when he
performed in Manchester a few years ago and was most inspired.
art>
(this is the toughest, I'd have to really think about live ones)
Dick Higgins.......not possible
Joseph Beuys......not possible
Ray Johnson.........not possible
literature>
Richard Brautigan....sadly, not possible
William Gibson............maybe, I like this guy's imagination
Haruki Murakami.......another maybe
science>
Robert Anton Wilson ......possible, he still does lecture tours I think
Buckminster Fuller ....not possible
Richard Stallman ...possible
film>
Woody Allen ........study only (not hanging out, too weird)
George Lucas ...study only, Lucas was very into Joseph Campbell I
believe(seems a bit dull for hanging out though)
Kevin Smith .......study and hang out, hanging out with Silent Bob, How cool
is that?
Of course I could think of many more but I thought it fun to just pick the
first 3 for each category off the top of my head.
Film's a very hard category, especially because a lot of the films I love I
can't remember the director's name...I love "La Haine" and was watching it
on tape again the other night but I still can't remember the director's name
and would have to look it up. Conversely the other morning, rushing for work
as usual I found myself humming the tune from John Carpenter's "Assault on
Precinct 13" and thinking of the word "cholo"....random snippets from a big
old brainful of popular drivel that I carry around...for some reason I find
it very hard to remember important political or historical issues but have
no trouble remembering the name of Buck Roger's robot companion
"Tweakie"...make of it what you will my fellow artisans ;-)
cheers,
Sol.
