Marienkapelle, Marienplatz, Würzburg
Matter of Fact It’s All Dark
Since the actual original bike accident on 1 May 2011, I have been under full anesthesia for more than 25 hours. That is a lot.
I had extreme misgivings about this last surgery, now 10 days ago. I have not been in a very good mood, and there is a lot of stuff that would be better to be doing. The ophthalmologic surgeon insisted that this was, like, the last chance to save the left eye, that it’s too busted up and nothing else has worked in terms of less drastic repairs. So even though, once I considered the alternative — of just having a fake eye that was an exciting color like violet or orange and different from the remaining eye and that eyes from the future like in Mona Lisa Overdrive will probably be invented soon — in my subdued state I agreed to this sort of new surgery where they graft some part of your good eye into your bad eye.
Unfortunately, until the moment the anesthesiologist told me what was going to happen I failed to realize that this would entail both eyes being totally patched for some number of days, and I was not very happy (as in extremely surprised and unhappy)* when I did realize it. But maybe I had been meaning to listen to the audio book of The Pale King anyway.
The trauma of surgery for me is normally the anesthesia…I am really kind of used to not being able wear my glasses, or see perfectly. This time I was out from about 10:30 a.m. until about 3:30 p.m. — quite a spell. In the recovery area I had some very vivid dreams and memories during which the nurse kept interrupting me from telling me to breathe…. I remembered so clearly a particularly sharp cold day in the hautes fagnes seeing a herd of deer emerge from the dense fog. A few years I looked up into the eyes of an acquaintance and discovered that instead of the blue I has always assumed they were these eyes were actually a sparkling golden hazel with flecks of green and black, like a lynx or a cheetah. I was so amazed I lost track of what the person was saying and just stared at them. This moment seemed to go on and on although it took only a second. Everything I imagined or remembered had to do vividly with animals or seeing or both so even in being partially aware that this was partially a synthetic effect of synapses snapping to Versed and Dilaudid this was an exceedingly intriguing state, and alluring.
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Apollinaire in Germany
Apollinaire was very popular in Bonn and in Berlin, where he befriended Herwarth Walden, who, among other things, occupied a societal role similar to that of Apollinaire. Apollinaire also wrote and drew quite prolifically, of course, in addition to being a tastemaker around whom a circle of other artists and authors coalesced.
In early 1913, August Macke was very excited when not only Apollinaire but Robert Delaunay (and later Max Ernst) came to hang out at his place. Apollinaire spoke German very well, also. Anyway, AM just loved these guys, and generally began trailing them around and writing to them all the time and so on.
There is much more to this story, some of it very exciting, and be assured I will get to it all shortly…
However not everyone was enchanted by Apollinaire. That “not everyone” included, well… for the immediate subject at hand, Franz Marc. FM actually had little use for Delaunay, after a (short) while, either. During 1913, FM pesters Delaunay with tons of perplexing, unsolicited criticism, finally in one outburst declaring that RD wasn’t a very good writer, either.
Apollinaire did like FM’s work, but FM kept a distance. Today upon discovering that it is Apollinaire’s birthday, well, what can I say? It explains a lot. Here is a very comprehensive if somewhat outdatedly designed Website about Apollinaire.
AM finally told FM, basically, to stop embarrassing him in front of his cool new friends. FM pointed out that it was he who had introduced these three to one another, and, that also, RD was kind of a jerk, refusing to give AM anything but a scrap of used drawing paper (like literally AM was begging for any type of memento and that was what RD let him have!). Anyway, RM and AM fought all the time as it was, so this altercation of course could not be resolved swiftly or in a few words and continued over the course of some petulant correspondence and huffy silences…full citations to come. FM was jealous, of course, but also he hated to see AM fall in with people he thought embodied the worst characteristic of all, that of being fake.
Fortunately, since everything that has happened before will happen again, this throwdown has been re-enacted by two parallel characters in one of the most important documentaries of our time (it had to be peddled as fiction because of the potency of its truth), Mean Girls (2004).
Above is the epic scene in which Janis Ian (as FM) confronts Cady Heron (as AM) [we won’t even get into the whole LiLo thing here, or about… nevermind) about being plastic…
With a special guest appearance by Damian as Helmuth Macke.
Downtown Tampa “Bridge Lighting / Agua Luces”
I was trying to think of the most hyperbolic way possible to describe the failure of the vague downtown Tampa “bridge lighting” from this past Friday (10 August 2012) but I can’t really think of anything that describes the underwhelmingness of the dead city this evening except that it was pretty much like any other summer, 100+ degree night downtown only with a few hipsters and scenesters. In terms of metrics I learned that 1000 people will not put in a dent in the cavernous space from the Tampa Museum of Art through Kiley Garden to Kennedy Boulevard.
The bridge lighting (the actual name of the event was “Agua Luces”) itself alternated monochrome projections, as if someone was turning one of those rotating color Christmas tree lighting wheels (I’m not explaining it very well; one of these) at an exceedingly slow speed (with about the same wattage), rhythmically, as in, with some kind of timing system, and yet not in the least hypnotically or soothingly.
It would have been more dynamic to have projected The Wizard of Oz, which was being shown in the park, onto the bridges. If someone had given a bunch of kids some laser pointers and they pointed them at the bridges, that would have been more interesting. A Mac desktop or even a Windows desktop. Someone making shadow puppets without even a real puppet, like, rabbit ears or something. Literally anything involving lights, bridges, the reflection from water, and being outside…
What do people think? What are your projection ideas?
UPDATE
Thank you for the many emailed questions and comments about this post. Please feel free to share these concerns as comments here so other people can see them.
In response to the question about the cost of Agua Luces / Bridge Lighting, I was not easily able to discover a dollar figure, though this information is posted on the lightsontampa Website with respect to the origin of the project: “Lights On Tampa is a public/private partnership between the City of Tampa’s Art Programs Division and the Public Art Alliance, a 501(c)3 organization. The Program began in 2006 with the desire to bring something bold, of high quality and “on the moment” to Tampa…” noting that the Agua Luces was originally scheduled to commence in 2006 but did not, and “The City of Tampa hopes that with continued private sector support Agua Luces will be extended to the remaining bridges in downtown by 2014. Lighting all nine bridges, as well as the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway which intersects with the Tampa Riverwalk, is a fundamental vision for the City of Tampa. Chicago-based lighting artist Tracey Dear who lit the bridges in Chicago as well as the Wrigley Building, was chosen for the installation.”
This is very telling information if you hack through it. I think “on the moment” must be one of those flack phrases (which I see sprinkled throughout that Website, along with photos of the bridges from the Tampa Club or wherever — places not even the most determined first-generation social climbers have access to let alone the public) that has a vague meaning, but seemingly by any definition, in 2012, we are no longer “on the moment” in the art world of 2006. Still you can’t fault the artist for accepting the commission although clearly there is more pedestrian traffic and people in general around the bridges in Chicago.
And it is also not surprising that “a fundamental vision” for Tampa from civic leaders is for something bland and shiny, as opposed to making the “light” rail happen, refurbishing the John Germany library a few blocks away from all the bridges, or whatever.
What it costs to be happy
Le lendemain revint le petit prince.
– Il eût mieux valu revenir à la même heure, dit le renard. Si tu viens, par exemple, à quatre heures de l’après-midi, dès trois heures je commencerai d’être heureux. Plus l’heure avancera, plus je me sentirai heureux. A quatre heures, déjà, je m’agiterai et m’inquiéterai; je découvrirai le prix du bonheur ! Mais si tu viens n’importe quand, je ne saurai jamais à quelle heure m’habiller le cœur… Il faut des rites.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince