The United States of Butter
The most interesting thing about art making—painting or writing or making any sort of art object for that matter—is that you can’t copy, you mustn’t even copy yourself: you have to originate, but by copying in the spirit of Brancusi’s, “simplicity is complexity resolved.”
I’m going through a phase where almost everything I read looks pontifical. The type’s too small, becoming smaller and smaller especially late at night which is the time I most like to read. I relax now in TV, where I discover gold once in awhile: the ‘old’ versions of “Maigret” and “All Creatures Wonderfully Grateful and Small”, the versions shot on film, not digital. Things I never noticed before begin to consume me. I am convinced it’s not my fate to be popular, yet I continue to dig into the side of the mountain to try to find the zeitgeist. I eat Cheetos for breakfast. Dr. Fauci will be with me in a moment. I mourn the loss of Mike Pompeo, who has retreated into the cocoon of a right-wing think-tank.
On TV, it seems the most interesting stuff often goes unexplored and that the truth is always inflammatory. Watching the Allen v. Farrow documentary on HBO the other night, one could actually feel something for all the main characters: the poor little abused child Dylan, the complicated awfulness of Woody Allen, the weirdness of Mia Farrow. And go from there to the New Yorkness of the situation, concluding that Donald Trump more or less performed incest on America: he fucked us, and winked. I wish too the British royals would go away, all of them. John Adams was correct about the war with Great Britain, that it would be “long and painful.” Adams “could see large subjects largely” it’s said Jefferson said of Adams.
The other night ESPN was kind enough to broadcast the Ali-Frazier fight (1971) in Madison Square Garden, with informed commentary, including the pre-fight sit-down with Howard Cosell during which the two fighters scuffled, Ali warming up the headlock he’d use continually during the 15 rounds of the real thing. Muhammed Ali was the most beautiful man in the world, at least until George Floyd appeared, and Joe Frazier the fiercest. Other items of interest during the fight: Frank Sinatra ringside, taking pictures with a small camera; the ref, a white man named Arthur Mercante Jr., saying to the two fighters sometime during the 14th round, “Stop holding, boys”, the use of the word “boys” in such situations verboten now.
Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, turned 90 over the weekend. I’ve begun to think of Fox News et. al, as The Mob. One can make the case that we’ve always lived in a culture, if one dare call it culture, better perhaps to think of it as a situation, in which the individual has always been led to believe in the benefits of submission, to listen to and obey authority without regarding the source.
I think I’ve finished a painting, ‘The United States of Butter,’ but have an unfinished feeling about it—that I’ve both taken it as far as I can and haven’t taken it far enough, that there’s something unresolved in it, and the unresolved is what is unresolved in me. In any event I can’t go on with it, we need a break from one another. This feeling of incompletion interests me though. It’s not exactly a feeling of failure, but it’s close to that, nor is it resignation, though that word is near the feeling. I did the best I could, I put in the time and so forth, but the outcome did not live up to the expectation—