Artists Are Embracing the Power of Refusal, Billy Anania, Hyperallergic

Today, cultural institutions leech onto revolutionary movements while making grand public statements about social justice, particularly after the largest anti-police uprising in a decade. Compare this to Occupy, when museums were silent on their affiliations with white-collar criminals like the Koch and Sackler families. Rather than make any material change, they sought to absorb protest art, just as in summer 2020. But artists are now hyper-aware of the contradictions pervading the nonprofit-industrial complex, leading to mass withdrawals from corporate biennials and a resurgent culture of exposing institutional decadence. The art that has propelled political unrest at every stage, as it has since the dawn of civilization, loses its edge the moment it enters a vitrine. As COVID-19 withers away the veneer of capitalist society, artists are once again embracing the power of refusal.

… i have been having my own revolt and protest, mild as it is, considering, how do i refuse the capitalist art complex which serves the artist so poorly?… it’s a somewhat laughable question, because, by and large, that complex has only allowed me at its periphery… so my protest is of necessity a minimal impact on the system and myself… still, in the spirit of the Classical Greek concept of Excellence and the Buddhist Eight Fold Path, i wander at the edges wondering what to do with my compulsion to make photographs?…

… my art itself is not protest… my desire to make it and share it outside the complex perhaps is… my own small refusal…

20220204-02

20220203-03

Craving Mexican…

… we love Mexican food… we are going to make some tomorrow night while the winds are howling and the snow is coming down… i have Nopalito by Gonzalo Guzman and Stacy Adimando… really nice Mexican cook book… we settled on Tortas Pambazos1 (Chorizo and Potato Sandwiches)… think of it as a sloppy Joe, but way better…

… i bought the needed ingredients yesterday… this morning i made the Jalpeños Curtidos (pickled jalapeños) and the Salsa Guajillo… tomorrow H will make the Teleras, (Mexican Sandwich Rolls)…

… that’s the thing with authentic Mexican… it’s generally a bit complex, involving layers of flavors… cheese, meat, chilies, salsas, concoctions needed to make the salsas… i imagine in Mexico many of these things are made up in quantity and ready to go for the week or month… not in our house… we don’t cook Mexican that often so we make what we need from scratch when we do… it’s what the English might refer to as “a bit of a palaver”… but oh the yum is worth it…


  1. I read that in Mexico the Tortas part of the title is not quite accurate and a little redundant with Pambazo? ↩︎

20220203-02

February 2, 2022, Heather Cox Richardson

And so we are back to where we were in 2019, when Vindman first reminded us that in America, right matters. At long last, will most of us decide that it does?

… it would be a good sign if it happens… not clear that it will… apparently the January 6 Committee will begin public hearings in April…

20220203-01

231.0 lbs

… not unexpected weight gain… takeout Chinese food last night… too much… fried… etc…

… the thought that when one reads history one becomes aware of great peoples… but great peoples do not remain great across time in the same place… civilizations wax and wan… i wonder if i am living in a country that is waning… i wonder if my misfortune is to live in a country that, at the end of my life, is in the process of collapsing its greatness (if it ever was truly great) like a spent star collapsing in on itself… the signs are there… are we at a moment when the things that would tear us apart will motivate great change, great calamity, great collapse, all three, two of the three, none of the above?…

… reading the history of the Greeks, there are echoes of the distant past in what is happening now…

… last night, i said to H, how is it that we have had so much time to work on the race problem and we have made so little progress?… we could be at a moment of great leaping forwards, or, backwards… the stage is set for a multiarchy to arise… the numbers will be there… but, then again, we have our own Sparta trying to prevail and keep the stratified society going… at the moment they don’t have the numbers, but… they appear to have the upper hand…

… still fretting about H going to the concert… i have worked out a plan that protects me… i need to discuss it with them…

… HCR sounding a note of hope, that we might be at a turning point with 45 and his minions… i am a little too weary and wary to hope… accountability seems a difficult thing in this place and this time…

… last night a news segment discussing the fact that more Americans have died from COVID than in any other advanced economy in the world… a large part of the blame is on our broadly poor health… is this another indicator of a failing civilization?…

20220202-02

… the Sophists, who taught the art of rhetoric, played a significant role in the demise of the Polis, argues Kitto in The Greeks… for Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mainteancne, the Sophists are the vanquished heroes… they are the ones teaching Quality (Virtue, Excellence)… Kitto tells us they were instrumental in the demise of the polis, through which the Greek concept of aretê (admired by Pirsig) was inculcated into the people as a whole… there could not be two more different ideas of the impact of the Sophists on subsequent Greek culture and Western civilization… and Pirsig read The Greeks

Things that work…

A friend gave us a couple of luffa sponges for Christmas 2020. They have been incredibly useful. It turned out they were the perfect scrubber for my cast iron pans. A little warm water and one of these can remove most cooking residue from my well seasoned pans without damaging the finish. They are a good scrubber for nonstick pans and dishes too.

They are incredibly durable. The one pictured above has been in daily use in our kitchen since the middle of last year. The two sponges my friend gave me have together lasted more than a year.

Our friend gave us dried lemon grass from their garden this year, so I recently ordered a couple more from this company in California, which appears to make them the way my friend does. You can grow luffa in your garden if you have the room. They are like squashes and need some room and a trellis to vine out over.

When they do wear out, you can toss them in the compost. Yup, pretty all-round wonderful.

20220201-07

… and now for something fun… my horoscope… Aries Horoscope | February 2022… according to it, things are looking up if i have the nerve…

20220201-06

Maus Sales Spike After Tennessee School Board Ban, Hakim Bishara, Hyperallergic

Sales of Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus on Amazon have soared massively since news emerged last week about its banning in Tennessee. Four editions of the acclaimed Holocaust memoir are currently among Amazon’s 18 bestselling books after a bundle of volumes from the series topped the list during the weekend.

… it might be funny if it weren’t so sad and threatening… this article does a credible job of describing what the Tennessee school board’s objections to the book and the reaction to the ban in terms of sales of the book in question and other Maus books which were written about the same subjects…

… i can’t say whether eighth graders are psychologically ready to address a graphic depiction of a dead, nude woman who has committed suicide… i suspect that with proper guidance they are, but i am not child psychology expert… as for curse words, i find it unlikely that most of the kids didn’t know the words already…

… i am reading about Classical Greece right now… it is so interesting to see that civilizations and cultures inevitably descend down the path of disintegration… book banning is an indicator of such a descent…

… we’ve been there before, we’ve come back from the brink… will we this time?…

20220201-05

No question. Just can’t wait for your show in Austin.

When I watch you play live my soul is lifted but I am not sure what that even means. It feels religious! What is the soul? See you in Montreal!1

… the response…

To walk on stage and perform a series of songs is an attempt to invigorate the collective soul of an audience. Whatever is happening to the soul of the audience is also happening to the soul of the performer. This mutuality is a circular and escalating intaking and outpouring of love. It is, by its very nature, a religious experience because it is in the service of a greater transcendent goodness. It is truth.2


  1. Reese, Montreal Canada ↩︎

  2. Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files ↩︎

20220201-04

The Problem with Permitting Putin’s “Sphere of Influence”, Brian Stewart, The Bulwark

Shrewd observers of U.S. foreign policy have recently claimed that the country is a superpower without a plan, but the truth is much worse: It’s increasingly apparent that America is a superpower without a coherent purpose.

By all appearances, the United States has lost faith in the global vocation it has shouldered since World War II. In the political establishment and among the general public, Americans have come to doubt the necessity of global engagement in defense of the liberal order—or, more astonishingly, even the desirability of a decent world order in the first place. This is a particular shame as well as a grave danger because the present order is very much an American creation, and it serves the national interest better than any alternative order (or disorder) that may follow the Pax Americana.

20220201-03

January 31, 2022, Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American…

CNN reported tonight that former president Trump had not one but two executive orders prepared to enable his loyalists to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. One authorizing the Pentagon to seize the machines was made public as part of the investigation by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Another, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security, has been confirmed to CNN by a number of sources, but is not publicly available.

20220201-02

The first sentences of the first paragraph of Chapter VIII, the Greeks at War, of Kitto’s The Greeks

The Greek world was now divided. On the one side was the Athenian Empire, which men openly called a ‘tyranny’; on the other, Sparta, the Peloponnesian League, and a number of states (notably in Boeotia) that sympathized with Sparta: the first group strong at sea, the second strong on land; the first in the main Ionian, the second Dorian – not that this division in itself counted for much; Athens favouring, even insisting on, democratic constitutions among her allies, the other group favouring oligarchies, or, at the most, limited democracies. It is a familiar situation.1

… have i mentioned what a good book this is?…


  1. Kitto, H.. The Greeks (Penguin History) (p. 136). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. ↩︎

20220201-01

230.2 lbs

… i went to bed feeling upset with H who has decided to go to a concert with L at an indoor venue… they asked if i wanted to come, i said no, i wasn’t comfortable with crowded indoor venues… they asked a friend if they wanted to come… that friend said no, for the same reason… i said to H, “if you get it, i get it”… they said they had thought about that… so far, the choice is to go… there is no way to effectively quarantine in our home and Omicron is so contagious that it would be difficult to be in any shared environment and not share it… at least that is my perception of things… i am wondering what effort they will make to keep me safe… i am wondering how long i should let it sit before i ask them to let me know how they plan to keep me safe… i am a little worried they are not considering how to keep me safe at all…

… apart from the above, yesterday not such a bad day… got some things done… managed a walk… took some pictures… got some reading done…

20220131-05

20220131-04

The Red Hand Files, Nick Cave

… what a fascinating website from a fascinating creator…

20220131-03

From Heather Cox Richardson this morning…

Last night, at a rally in Conroe, Texas, former president Trump told supporters that if he runs for president and wins in 2024, he will pardon the January 6 insurrectionists. Observers note that this promise might encourage the bigger fish ensnared by the investigation to keep quiet; Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that “Trump…is committing a form of obstruction of justice in full public view.” Others note that the promise of pardoning the insurrectionists might well become a litmus test for any Republican candidate in 2024.1

… dark clouds building…


  1. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-30-2022 ↩︎

20220131-02

… i think about the Greeks as i read Kitto’s book… there is much i admire, the bulk of which is the concept of the Polis as a living body of justice and administration and, most importantly, character building…

… local communities can do this, they can be a Polis… i am piecing together a way forward for myself, maybe others…

  • Robert Pirsig’s concept of Quality
  • E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, Buddhist Economics
  • The Buddhist Eight Fold Way as a template for right living

… it’s coming together in my mind…

20220131-01

… well, major success on the culinary front last night and then a really good night’s sleep… perhaps the world will be my oyster this AM?…

… i have decided to return to Ulysses for journaling and short, spur of the moment posting to my blog site… the work flow is simple and fast and Ulysses is a good working environment… i will continue to use Obsidian for notes on reading and research rabbit holes…

… i do have to talk a bit about the culinary success… i made the Persian rice with tahdig in a new cast iron pot i got for the purpose… most recipes recommend a non-stick pot and i had one i purchased to make this dish… however, i am determined to eliminate non-stick from my kitchen… the most suitable replacement is cast iron, but, as one fellow cook said, properly seasoned cast iron is mostly non-stick… it takes more finesse to cook a dish like this with cast iron… so, to get a perfect tahdig as i did is amazing…

… my first try was a disaster for the most part… the rice bonded to the pot like super glue… last night was my second try and the rice came out clean as a whistle which i attribute to a number of things…

  • nearly two weeks of working on the seasoning of the new pot
  • the use of butter as the bond breaker
  • the cooling of the bottom of the pot before tipping the rice out onto a plate

… yesterday was a much better day than Saturday… laundry got done, fish got bought, family got met with, though it was just M on FaceTime… also did some tweaking of my blog… changed the theme… looks much better now…

… significant accomplishment!… Persian rice with tahdig in a cast iron pot! Non stick pot is the broad recommendation because, you know, rice sticks…

Things that work…

this ergonomic mouse by Jelly Comb

Ergonomic Mouse by Jelly Comb

… for years i had been trying all kinds of mousing solutions because of pain in my mousing arm and shoulder… for a long time i did mixtures, switching from traditional mouse to track ball and back again periodically in an attempt to use different muscles… this helped, but i was never completely pain free… then i bought this mouse… after several months of use, i was pain free… completely… i have been using the mouse for a couple of years now… the mousing arm pain has never returned, no matter how much time i spend at the computer… your mileage may vary, but for me, this is a thing that works…

20220130-02

… they say it’s important to have a plan…

… my plan is to to write one long form titled post each week… i will set aside Saturday mornings for doing this (i am an early riser even on Sat)… content would be drawn from the past week of reading, journal writing and blog posting…

… these will be one of several kinds of titled post i produce… another is a weekly photo micro edit1 which i have already begun…

… all titled posts will be gathered together in a monthly newsletter post…

… that’s my plan and i am sticking to it…


  1. … by this i mean a small set of images drawn from the past week’s photographs, edited together to be a whole greater than the parts… ↩︎

Week 04 Image Poem

20220130-01

230.0 lbs

… as much as i laid around and did nothing yesterday… as much as i snacked… still a little bit of weight is lost… my fears not realized…

… yesterday started off ok, some good reading and thinking… but somewhere in the early afternoon it drove off a cliff… i just sat around and did nothing… but watch some tv… i don’t do nothing well… i need to be occupied…

… we did get a number of episodes of Foundation out of the way… good series… except… can i just say that i am growing really tired of the current fashion of story telling?… which is not to tell stories in linear fashion but to jump backwards and forwards in time leaving one to pick up the threads and weave them together…

… is it a device to cloak a weak story line?…

… the story telling fashion of the moment?…

… the result of a massively confused society?…

Alright, sci-fi fans… Foundation on Apple TV!

Reading: The Greeks by H.D.F. Kitto 📚 … just finished reading the sixth chapter… this book is so well written and completely engrossing… the sixth chapter concerns early Classical Greece and focuses on the Ionians, Spartans and Athenians… Athens is especially interesting for the way in which its widely admired culture came about… … if i have any complaint, and this might be more appropriate to direct to Greek culture of the time than to the author of this book, it’s that women are mostly absent from the history… i am about half way through the book, so i suppose it is possible a woman or two will figure into the picture somewhere… … even so, it is a fascinating book, easy to read, and has much to ponder in relation to the current political and cultural churning in the United States and around the World…