Archive for the ‘Quotes’ Category

two coca cola bottles

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

To have, to realize that two Coca Cola bottles are not identical and what makes them not identical is that they’re not at the same point. They can’t be at the same point in space. Since they’re not at the same point in space they automatically receive – each one receives light differently than the other, so that it can be as fascinating as going to a museum to look carefully, attentively at two Coca Cola bottles, hmm? And something of that is implicit in a great deal of 20th century art.

John Cage in an interview with Terry Gross on WHYY’s Fresh Air.

On embracing what’s next…

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them.

Ansel Adams in his 1981 introduction to The Negative

I started reading The Negative recently and this excerpt has really stuck with me. I’d like to think that were Adams alive today he’d be happy to play with the latest methods of photography that technology has to offer. I’m encouraged that somebody so influential to the art and craft of photography seemed unafraid of the ever-changing face of his medium.

Master of Simile

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

A smart, talented, accomplished writer-actor like Myers spending years meticulously creating, rehearsing, and refining an obnoxious one-note cartoon like Guru Pitka is a like a group of brilliant scientists working around the clock for a decade to build a malfunctioning fart machine…

Nathan Rabin in his dissection of The Love Guru

The bigger they are…

Friday, October 10th, 2008

Let’s fail together!

– My lovely wife, Valerie, reacting to news that General Motors and Chrysler are exploring the possibility of a merger.

Suburban Malcontent

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

The American suburb is ideally suited to driving alone and being a little sad about things you haven’t bought yet.

Merlin Mann from Twitter.

Art, Clearly

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world

– The late poet Stanley Kunitz, quoted on a wall in the Visual Arts Center of Richmond.

Outsider Art

Friday, June 20th, 2008

The term “outsider art” is class warfare all wrapped in a neat little snarky bow.
Phil Barbato, via Twitter

Hypocrilicious

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Regardless of my lack of support for the major parties, Slate’s John Dickerson nailed it when he said:

We can disdain moderators who ask questions designed to trap candidates, but we’re no different if we screech every time they put a foot wrong.

Caveat Emptor

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

…the distinction between “great marketing accomplishment” and “consumer fraud” can be quite thin…

from Going Private: The Five Circles of Hell

Of potties and poetry…

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

Public toilets have a duty to be accessible, poetry does not.
—Geoffrey Hill